Leaves from the note book of a naturalist

BERKELEY^

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF
.CALIFORNIA

B/oscience & Natur~
Resources Library

LEAYES

FROM THE

NOTE BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

BY

W. J. BRODERIP, ESQ., F. R-. S.

ETC. ETC. ETC. »

AUTHOR. OF "ZOOLOGICAL RECREATIONS," ETC. ETC.

Farewell, farewell ! but this I toll
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest :

lie prayeth well, who lovetli well
Both man and bird and beast.

The A7icient Mariner.

^jOg

BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY E. LITTELL & CO

NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM.

1852.

BIOLOGY
LIBRARY

G

CONTENTS.

PART I.
THE Bearer and the Macauco, . ,

PART II.

Menageries opposed to romance — The Condor — Unpro-
tected state of its eggs — Elevations chosen for their
resting-place — Color, <fec. of the nestling — The Condor's
feast — Indian mode of capturing the bird— Exciting
nature of the sport — Huniboldt's account of the Con-
dor's tenacity of life — The Lammergeyer — Its perti-
nacity and audacity — Dimensions of the bird — The
Condor's offspring in captivity — Eggs placed under a
domestic lien — Slowness of the hatching process —
Description of the young bird — Its food — Attachment
of the Hen to its nursling — Death of the young Condor
— Modification of instinct — Relative proportions of new-
born quadrupeds, birds just hatched, and fishes — Feath-
ers of the Condor used as quills — The King Vulture —
Its brilliant colors — Account of a Buzzard hatching
chickens, -J

PART III.

Transmigration of Souls — The Stork ; qualities attributed
to the bird by the ancients — Its migration — The White
Stork — Metamorphosis of Antigone — Gratitude of Storks
proverbial — Heracleis of Tarentum rewarded by a Stork
— Supposed gratitude, chastity, and hatred of infidelity
of the Stork — Its physical structure — Its food—" Live
fish " — Feeding the nestlings — Visits of the Stork to
the nests of Wild Ducks — Traditions connected with
the White Stork— The Black Stork — Its habits— Colonel
Montagu's specimen — Mode of cooking the Stork —
The " Adjutant "— -The Stork family — General re-
marks, 8

PART IV.

Africa, the country of wonders — Phoenixes and Winged
Serpents — The Giraffe — The Hippopotamus at Cairo —
Pea-fowl sent to Africa as a present to the King of
Dahomy — Expected additions to the Zoological Society's
collection — The Rhinoceros — Cause of its death — The
African Elephant — Dimensions given by Major Den-
ham — Manner of hunting the Elephant — Faust — The
Hippopotamus — Its osteological organization — Dissec-
tion of a Hippopotamus calf — Voracious appetite of the
Hippopotamus — Voice of the animal — Shooting excur-
sion— The skin converted into an instrument of torture
— Barbarous punishment of offenders — Supposed enmity
of the Hippopotamus and the Crocodile — The Hippo-
potamus a master of the healing art, 14

PART V.

A freezing Spring — The American Barn-Swallow — Its
nest — Superstition regarding the Swallow — The Chim-
ney-Swallow— Courage of the Purple Martin — Extraor-
dinary migration of birds into Pennsylvania from the
South— The English Swallow — Process of taming de-
scribed by the Rev. W. Trevelyan— Multitudes of
insects destroyed by the Swallow— Ancient traditions —
Singular medicinal properties ascribed to the Swallow —
The Wood-Swallow, or Be-wowcn of the Aborigines of
Western Australia — Pleasing habits of the Wood-Swal-
low, described by Mr. Gould— Its food and general
character — Season of incubation — Form of the nest —
Color and dimensions of the bird — Egg of the White-
headed Eagle, in the Zoological Society's collection —

Niagara a favorite resort of the bird — Its muscular
power — Wilson's description of its predatory habits —
Franklin's view of the case — Turkeys found by Cortes
when he invaded Mexico — The Eagle's unceremonious
treatment of the Vulture — The nest of the Eagle — In-
cubation in captivity — Attachment of the parents to
their young in the wild state — The AVedge-tailed
Eagle — Its prey — A Kangaroo-shooting party — News
from Egypt of the Society's Hippopotamus, . . 23

PART VI.

The Siren and its classic predecessors — Its generic charac-
ter— Anatomical account — Description of a male and
female — Death of the latter — The Camel — Its wonder-
ful structure — Its adaptation to its state of life — Its
noiseless step — The Baggage-Camel — Altered form of
its dorsal vertebrae — The Dromedary — Its swiftness com-
pared to that of the high-mettled racer — A lover's
exploit — African Camel-drivers — Training of the Camel
— Camel-breeding at Pisa — Use of the Camel in ancient
war — Holland's account, translated from Pliny — An-
tipathy of the Horse to the Camel — Madness of the
Camel — Reason assigned — Camel fight — Late appear-
ance of the Camel on the Roman arena — Its medicinal
properties — Its regular mode of progression — Manner
of training the Camel described by old authors — In-
stance of its cruel treatment by drivers — The Camel-
doctors— Diseases to which the Camel is subject —
Objects of interest in the Museum of the College of
Surgeons, in relation to this animal — Boat planned
from its remains — The Pilgrim-caravan — Its glittering
array — Construction and formation of the Camel, . 33

PART VII.

Further remarks on the process of incubation on the egg
of the Wedge-tailed Eagle by a domestic Hen — Attempt
by the parents to destroy the eggs — Parental care of
their young by gregarious quadrupeds — The Reindeer
— Fondness for its young — Maternal affection of ani-
mals of a high grade — Touchingly instanced in the
case of a she Bear — Boldness of Birds under such cir-
cumstances— Example given by White — Parental so-
licitude of the Partridge — Of the domestic Hen — Of the
Mare — The practice of hatching Ducks' eggs by a Hen
— Black Swans and their brood — The Canada Geese —
Their propensity to destroy the nestlings of other birds
— Instanced by a pair in St. James' Park — The Gold-
finch's nest — Perseverance and manoeuvring of a Spar-
row while nest-building — Anxiety for concealment
manifested by birds generally in the process of nidifica-
tion — The Ostrich — The mode adopted by this bird of
hatching its eggs — Number of eggs produced — Its nest
— A Hen's eggs hatched by a Partridge — The Brush-
Turkey — Its mode of egg-hatching — Genera of the
family — A puzzle to systematists — The bird described
— Construction of its nest — Of nests generally — Hun-
ter's experiments on the eggs of a domestic Hen in re-
lation to the eggs of the Brush-Turkey — Gould's re-
marks and experience on the same subject — Western
Australian Pheasant described — Their " nest-mounds "
— The Jungle Fowl described — The Bower-Birds of
Australia — Specimens in the Zoological Gardens — Ar-
rival there of the Hippopotamus, the Thylacines, and
the Snake-charmers, 42

PART VIII.

The Chlamydera, or Spotted Bower-Bird — Its range —
Opinion of Mr. Gould thereon — Remarkable plumage —
The great Bower-Bird — Specimen in the Zoological

IV

CONTENTS.

Gardens — Habits, Ac., of the Bird — The Marsupiates, or
Purse-Bearers — The Thylacinus Cynocephalus, or dog-
faced Opossum — Specimen in the Zoological Society's
Gardens — The Kangaroo — Professor Owen's observa-
tions and experiments upon this animal — Remarks
thereon — Further account of the Thylacines — Specula-
tions upon the mode of reproduction of the ornithorhyn-
chus and echidna — The Hippopotamus of the Zoological
Society — Its organization — Professor Owen's account of
the animal alluded to — General appearance and habits
described — Sparrman and Mr. Gumming — The mode of
capture of the Society's Hippopotamus, and account of
its voyage — Its attendants — General remarks, . . 52

PART IX.

Scriptural and classical allusions to Serpents commented
upon — Their bite and its antidote — Snake-charmers —
Hasselquist's and Bruce's opinions — The feats of the
Arab Snake-charmers, at the Zoological Gardens, de-
scribed— The gift of snake-charming said to be heredi-
tary— The Kpughslang, or " Spitting-Snake " — The Asi-
atic form of this genus of serpents described — Taming
Serpents, as related by Dr. Davy— Captain Knox's
experience on this subject — Cingalese veneration for
Serpents — Their legends concerning these reptiles —
Poison of venomous Serpents; Dr. Mead's opinion there-
on— Mr. Bell's experiments in investigating the anat-
omy of venomous Snakes — Case of a carpenter bitten by
one of these reptiles — Similar instance given by Dr.
Mead — His advice in such cases — His mode of curing a
Dog — Viper-wine and Viper-broth — Remarks upon the
poison and its nature — Authorities cited — General re-
marks, 63

PART X.

Attraction of the reptile-house in the Garden of the Zo-
ological Society — Fixedness of attitude of the reptiles —
Its cause explained — Adaptation of color of creatures
in general to their haunts instanced throughout the
animal creation — Effects of the bite of a serpent upon
two dogs — Remedies adduced — Snakes in the reptile-
house — Discrepancies of Reptile organization — The
Land Tortoise described — Their immense size — Ameri-
can mode of immortalizing names — Large Land-Tor-
toises short-lived in England — White's tortoise; its
peculiarities — Redi's experiments upon the Land-Tor-
toise— Its enduring vitality instanced — Franklin's Flies
— Extraordinary longevity of a Fly — The Land, Marsh,
River, and Sea Tortoises — General remarks, . . .76

PART XI.

The Turtle — Professor Owen's observations — Difference
between the Turtle and the Land Tortoise defined — The
Green Turtle — Chantrey and turtle-soup — The " Alder-
man's Walk " — A Turtle feast- — Supper of Claudius
Albinus — Wine-bibbing propensities of the ancient
Romans — Use of Tortoiseshell in Rome — Large skull
of a Turtle — Remarks on the natural history and cap-
ture of Turtles — Sloane's account of a Turtle diet — La-
bat's opinion thereon — Mode of quieting Turtles, to
avoid their bite — Protracted struggle between a slave
and a Turtle — Mode of capture — Pliny's account of it
— Turtle-divers — A Turtle-chase — Account of the Re-

mora — Of Turtles and their uses — Allusions and general
remarks in relation to the Tortoise, 88

PART XII.

Geological remarks — Fossil foot-prints — Egyptian legends
connected with the form of the Crocodile — Methods of
capture — Crocodile-executioners — Ancient superstitions
connected with the Crocodile — Sacred to the Egyptians
— Nature of the Crocodile — Its protectors — Crocodiles
destructive of the human race — Sonnini's remarks on
the Crocodile — Bait used for taking it by the ancient
fishermen-^Crocodiles and gladiators — Supposed medici-
nal uses of the Crocodile — Peculiarities in the organiza-
tion of the Crocodilian family — Difference between the
Alligator and the Crocodile — Food of the Alligator —
Their mode of reproduction — Ravenous and ferocious
disposition — Capture of an Alligator, as related by Sir
Hans Sloane — The Alligator's habit of swallowing
stones — General remarks, 98

PART XIII.

The Chameleon — Its habits— Change of color, and living
on air ; the former well founded, the latter a fallacy —
Hasselquist's experiments — A tame Chameleon— Con-
clusion as to the principal agent in change of color —
D'Obsonville's opinion — Structure and properties of the
colorific stratum of the skin — Mechanism by which
changes of color are effected in the marine animals
generally— Form of the Chameleon — Mode of taking
its prey — Pliny's account-'— The Chameleon eaten by
the Chinese — Supposed virtue of various parts of the
Reptile — Its medicinal properties — The Viper — Its or-
ganization— Mode of destroying the tribe — Capture of a
Rock-Snake — Its extraordinary dimensions — A Malay
crushed to death by a Serpent — Captain Stednmn's
encounter with a Snake — lurcher's account of the bene-
fit derived by man from the serpent race— Carver's in-
stances of its docility — Snake-worship — Serpent-idols at
Mexico, 110

PART XIV.

General remarks upon climate — Condition of the Hippo-
potamus at the Society's Gardens — The great Land
Tortoise there — Escape of the White Bear — Its capture
— Improvement suggested in keeping the Reptiles —
Serpents and their food — Supposed virtue of the fat of
Serpents — A negro bitten by a Serpent — Antidote for the
bite of the deadly Cobra — Penalty for killing a Fetish
Snake — Fascination of Serpents generally believed in
America — A pet Toad — Peculiar formation of the tongue
of the Toad — A valuable " bit of its skeleton " — Poison-
ous exudation from the Toad — Dr. Buckland's experi-
ments— The Zoological Society's Reptile-house on a
summer night — Death of the Land Tortoises in the
Society's Gardens — The Crested Pigeons there — Curi-
ous organization of the Dove kind — Parrots, Macaws,
Ac.; their mode of feeding each other — "Pigeon's
milk ; " the joke not altogether groundless — Columbidae
— The Passenger-Pigeon — Its power of flight— The
Carrier-Pigeon — Its derivation — Proneness to domesti-
cation in the tame Pigeon — Breeding-places in the
States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana — Vast Bights
of Pigeons — Fertility of the Dove kind — Conclusion, 122

UHI

LEA YES

FROM THE

NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

PART I.

A BEAVER* arrived in this country in the win-
ter of 1825, very young, being small and woolly,
and without the covering of long hair that marks
the adult animal. It was the sole survivor of five
or six which were shipped at the same time, and
it was in a very pitiable condition, lean, and with
the coat all clogged with pitch and tar. Good
treatment quickly restored it to health ; it grew
a"pace, plumped out, and the fur became clean and
in good condition. Kindness soon made it famil-
iar. When called by its name " Binny," it gen-
erally answered with a little, low, plaintive cry,
and came to its owner. The hearth-rug was its
favorite haunt in a winter evening, and thereon it
would lie stretched out at its length, sometimes
on its back, sometimes on its side, and sometimes
on its belly, expanding its webbed toes to secure
the full action of a comfortable fire on them, but
always near its master.

The building instinct showed itself early. Be-
fore it had been a week in its new quarters, as
soon as it was let out of its cage, and materials
were placed in its way, it immediately went to
work. Its strength, even before it was half-
grown, was great. It would drag along a large
sweeping-brush, or a warming-pan, grasping the
handle with its teeth, so that it came over its
shoulder, and advancing with the load in an oblique
. direction, till it arrived at the point where it wished
to place it. The long and large materials were
always taken first, and two of the longest were
generally laid crosswise, with one of the ends of
each touching the wall, and the other ends project-
ing out into the room. The area formed by the
crossed brushes and the wall he would fill up with
hand-brushes, rush-baskets, books, boots, sticks,
clothes, dried turf, or anything portable. As the
work grew high he supported himself on his tail,
which propped him up admirably ; and he would

* Part of this narrative appeared, by the permission of
the author, in The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoo-
logical Society Delineated, 1840 ; a highly interesting and
instructive work.

often, after laying on one of his building materials,
sit up over against it, appearing to consider his
work, or, as the country-people say, " judge it."
This pause was sometimes followed by changing
the position of the material "judged," and some-
times it was left in its place. After he had piled
up his materials in one part of the room, (for he
generally chose the same place,) he proceeded to
wall up the space between the feet of a chest of
drawers which stood at a little distance from it,
high enough on its legs to make the bottom a roof
for him ; using for this purpose dried turf and
sticks, which he laid very even, and filling up the
interstices with bits of coal, hay, cloth, or any-
thing he could pick up. This last place he seemed
to appropriate for his dwelling ; the former work
seemed to be intended for a dam. When he had
walled up the space between the feet of the chest
of drawers, he proceeded to carry in sticks, clothes,
hay, cotton-wool, &c., and to make a nest. When
he had done this to his satisfaction, he would sit
up under the drawers and comb himself with the
nails of his hind feet, ^n this operation, that
which appeared at first to be a malformation was
shown to be a beautiful adaptation to the necessi-
ties of the animal. The huge webbed hind-feet
of the beaver turn in so as to give the appearance
of deformity ; but if the toes were straight, instead
of being incurved, the animal could not use them
so readily for the purpose of keeping its fur in
order, and cleansing it from dirt and moisture.

Binny generally carried small and light articles
between his right fore-leg and his chin, walking
on the other three legs ; and huge masses, which
he could not grasp readily with his teeth, he
pushed forwards, leaning against them with his
right fore-paw and his chin. He never carried
anything on his tail, which he liked to dip in
water, but he was not fond of plunging in the
whole of his body. If his tail was kept moist he
never cared to drink ; but if it was kept dry it
became hot, and the animal appeared distressed,
and would drink a great deal. It is not impossi-
ble that the tail may have the power of absorbing
water, like the skin of frogs, though it must be

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

owned that the scaly integument which invests
that member has not much of the character which
generally belongs to absorbing surfaces.

It has been asserted, and in some degree proved,
that the song of birds depends on that which they
first hear ; but their nest-making seems to be the
result of innate instinct. Binny must have been
captured too young to have seen any of the build-
ing operations of his parents or their co-mates,
but his instinct impelled him to go to work under
the most unfavorable circumstances ; and he busied
himself as earnestly in constructing a dam, in a
room up three pair of stairs in London, as if he
had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake
in Upper Canada.

Bread, and bread and milk and sugar, formed
the principal part of Binny's food ; but he was
very fond of succulent fruits and roots. Tender
twigs, especially of the willow, were greatly to
his taste, and he would handle them very adroitly,
drawing them through his fore-paws, which he
closed on them much as a basket-maker would
do when trying a twig, though less perfectly of
course.

An animal so sociable in his habits ought to be
affectionate ; and very affectionate the beaver is
said to be. Drage mentions two young ones,
which were taken alive and brought to a neigh-
boring factory in Hudson's Bay, where they
throve very fast until one of them was killed acci-
dentally. The survivor instantly felt the loss, began
to moan, and abstained from food till it died. Mr.
Bullock mentioned to the narrator a similar instance
which fell under his notice in North America.
A male and female were kept together in a room,
where they lived happily till the male was deprived
of his partner by death. For a day or two he
appeared to be hardly aware of his loss, and brought
food and laid it before her ; at last, finding that
she did not stir, he covered her body with twigs
and leaves, and was in^a pining state when Mr.
Bullock lost sight of him.

With no slight regret the writer adds a third
example in the death of his pet. The housekeeper
was very fond of Binny, always consulting his
comfort and appetite, making his bed warm, and
treating him frequently to Sally Lunns and plum-
cake, till he became the most plump and sleek of
beavers ; and the attachment was reciprocal. At
last, on the writer's departure from London for
some time, he thought that Binny, who had grown
excessively fat, would be the better for exercise and
change of air, and would be more comfortable if
sent to pay a visit to the Tower of London and
expatiate there. Mr. Cops, the keeper of the
lions, kindly undertook to take care of him. He
was suffered to go at large, and had every accom-
modation, but soon began to fall off in his appetite.
In vain did his kind host try every delicacy to
tempt his guest. With the exception of a few
raisins the dejected animal would eat nothing, and
fell away visibly. Fearing the worst, and sus-
pecting that it was pining for its home, Mr. Cops
brought it back to the housekeeper. The poor

beaver immediately recognized her, uttered his
little cry, and crept under her chair. But the
blow had been struck ; he never rallied, but died,
as the good old housekeeper declared, with tears
in her eyes, of a broken heart. His skin is pre-
served in the museum of the Bristol Philosophical
Society. Poor Binny ! He was a most faithful
and entertaining creature, and some highly comic
scenes occurred between the worthy but slow
beaver, and a light and airy macauco that was
kept in the same apartment.

The macauco was a white-fronted lemur,* and
was presented to the writer by the late Captain
Marryat, R. N. From the excessive agility of
this sprightly creature his master named him
" Monsieur Mazurier," to which name, and also
to that of " Macky," he would answer by a satis-
factory grunting noise. His bounds were won-
derful. From a table he would spring twenty or
thirty feet to the upper angle of an open door, and
then back again to the table or his master's shoul-
der, light as a fairy. In his leaps, his tail seemed
to act as a kind of balancing pole, and the elastic
cushions at the end of his fingers enabled him to
pitch so lightly that his descent was hardly felt
when he bounded on you. He would come round
the back of his master's neck, and rub his tiny
head fondly against his master's face or ear, and,
after a succession of fondlings and little gruntings,
descend to his master's instep, as he sat cross-
legged before the fire, when he would settle him-
self down thereon, wrap his tail around him like
a boa, and go to sleep. When in his cage he
generally slept on his perch, rolled up, with his
head downwards and his tail comfortably wrapped
over all. If a piece of orange was given to him
he would lift the fruit to his mouth and throw
back his head, so as to secure the juice, not a drop
of which was lost. He was very ibnd of sparkling
champagne, and after such a treat, his friskings
and playful tricks were beyond description funny.
His game of romps with Binny was most ludicrous.
Often, while Monsieur Mazurier was seated on his
master's instep, the bell was rung for Binny, who
entered as rapidly as his shuffling gait would per-
mit him, immediately came close to his master's
leg, uttered his little cry, and caressed the leg,
after his fashion, by rubbing the side of his head
and his nose against it. Presently he would, per-
ceive Macky, whom he would awake, and endeavor
to seduce him to play by prancing and shuffling
before him. Macky, nothing loath, would make a
spring on Binny's tail and bound off in an instant.
Upon which Binny would shuffle and prance,
shake his head, and play wonderful antics. People
may talk of the gambols of a rhinoceros, but the
gambols of the rodent threw those of the pachy-
derm into the shade, beating them hollow in un-
couthness and absurdity. Macky would bound on
Binny's back, dance a kind of saraband upon him,
and then leap before him, upon which Binny
would charge the dancer with the most determined
heavy alacrity. Macky was over his head and
* Lemur aJbifrons.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

skipping on his great, flat, scaly tail in a second.
Then Binny would shake his head, wheel round
like a ponderous wagon, and, by the time he had
brought his head where his tail was, Macky had
bounded from the tables and chairs on and off him
twenty times. Binny at last would slap his tail
again and again against the floor till he'made all
ring, whereupon Mack'y would dance round him,
and cut the most extravagant capers, touching
Binny's tail with his finger and jumping away as
quick as thought.

They had evidently a good understanding with
each other, and were on the best terms. One day
they were left al large in a room together, where
there was a linen press, the • doors of which had
been left open. Macky climbed the doors, ran-
sacked the press, pulled out the sheets, table-
cloths, &c., and threw them down to the beaver,
who, jpving made a most luxurious bed, laid him-
self down thereon ; and when the room was en-
tered Macky and Binny were found fast asleep,
the former with his head and shoulders pillowed
upon Binny's comfortable neck. When Binny
died, his master determined to have no more sor-
rowing for pets, and sent Macky to the Zoological
Society's garden, in the Regent's Park, where
they got him a wife, with whom he lived long
and happily.

The two beavers which were in that garden
when the writer gave the late lamented Mr. Ben-
nett permission to print the account of his domesti-
cated beaver, were sent to the society from Canada
by Lord Dalhousie. They were partially deprived
of sight before their arrival in this country ; but
one of them had the use of one eye ; and the other,
although totally blind, dived most perseveringly
for clay! and applied it to stop up every cranny in
their common habitation that could admit " the
winter's flaw." They lived some time together,
apparently happy and contented.

GREAT as have been the advantages of menage-
ries, in bringing immediately under the eyes of
every observer animals which would otherwise be
hardly known except from books, or from their
remains preserved in museums, they have, it must
be confessed, been fatal to romance. The exag-
gerated proportions which travellers have assigned
to birds and, beasts — ay, and men — partly from
seeing the objects at a distance, and partly from
the highly-colored and, in many instances, imper-
fectly understood accounts of the natives, shrink
when the living creature is before the spectator.
In such cases, truth — like the best pictures of the
Italian masters, which are not satisfactory at first,
especially to those who have admired the extrava-
gances, however poetical, of a Fuseli — looks
poorly ; and it is only after consideration that the
mind becomes reconciled to the light, before which
errors and false pretensions vanish.

How many, who have read of the condor till he
has been almost magnified into the roc of Arabian
story, have been disappointed at the first sight of

those birds which have been kept so long at the
garden of the Zoological Society of London ! I
can hardly call to mind one who has so seen them
in my presence whose expectations had not gone
far beyond what he then saw. To say nothing
of more general romantic statements, eighteen feet
have been given as the actual measurement across
the expanded wings of the great vulture of the
Andes. The old male belonging to the society, a
very fine specimen, measures eleven feet from tip.
to tip when his wings are outstretched ; his length
does not exceed four feet nine inches. Both he
and his partner, notwithstanding their confinement
— a confinement which must be peculiarly irksome
and unnatural to a bird, the greater portion of
whose free life is spent on the wing, sailing in
the higher regions of the atmosphere, far above
the throne of clouds of the

Giant of the western star,

appear to enjoy good health, proofs of which have
been given in their attempts to continue the spe-
cies, notwithstanding their unfavorable situation.

In a state of nature, the eggs of the condor are
said to rest on the rock, without stick or straw,
and unprotected by any border. There, at an ele-
vation of from ten to fifteen thousand feet above
the level of the sea, on such ledges and plateaux
as " The Condor's Look-out," " The Condor's
Nest," "The Condor's Roost," the nestling first
breathes the highly rarefied air. A year elapses,
it is asserted, before the downy young one is suffi-
ciently plumed to leave the mother. About the
end of the second year, the color is a yellowish
brown, and, up to this time, the gallila or ruff IB
not visible, whence probably arises the notion that
there are. two species of condors, one black, (the
color of the adult,) and one brown. Flying to a
more lofty pitch than any other bird, and reduced
in the sight of the upward gazer, amid the grand
and gigantic scenery, to the size of hawks, they
wheel round, keeping their telescopic eyes on the
valleys, watching for the fall of some failing
horse or cow. Then down come the condors to
the feast. In their daintiness they generally
begin with the tongue and the eyes, but the rage
of a hunger sharpened by days of watching on
the wing, in the eager air of a very high altitude,
is not easily appeased. The bird, rioting in the
midst of the plentiful table which death has spread
for it in the wilderness, after tearing up the hide
with its trenchant beak, carves out and swallows
gobbet after gobbet, till it is so gorged as to be
unable to raise itself on the wing. This the
Indians well know, and when they have a mind
for a battue they set forth a dead horse or cow,
and quietly watch the progress of the repast,
which is sure to be attended by the condors, some
of them being almost always on their walch far
aloft. When they are well gorged, and looking
on each other with gluttonous gravity, the Indiana
make their appearance with the deadly lasso.
Then comes a scene of excitement, gladdening the
heart of the sportsman only a degree less than the

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

stimulating bull-fight. The lassos are thrown
with more or less success. Some are fast, others
contrive to scramble away ; but when a condor is
caught, there is a fight, and a stout one, before it
is killed ; and, indeed, the stories told of its te-
nacity of life would be incredible were they not
attested by trustworthy witnesses.

Humboldt shall be called to make out a strong
case. He was present when the Indians tried to
overcome the vitality of one which they had taken
alive. Having strangled it with a lasso, they
hanged it on a tree, pulling it forcibly by the feet
for several minutes, in a manner that would have
done credit to Mr. Calcraft and his assistants.
The execution being apparently over, the lasso
was removed ; the bird got up and walked about
as if nothing had happened. A pistol was then
fired at it, the man who fired standing within less
than four paces. Three balls hit the living mark,
wounding it in the neck, chest, and abdomen ; the
bird kept its legs. A fourth ball broke its thigh.
Then the condor fell, but it did not die of its
wounds till half an hour had elapsed. This bird
was preserved by M. Bonpland. Such direct and
unimpeachable evidence should make us pause
before we hastily discredit the accounts of older
writers. Ulloa was thought to have used a
traveller's privilege when he asserted, that in the
colder localities of Peru the condor is so closely
protected by its feathery armor, that eight or ten
balls might be heard to strike without penetrating,
or, at least, bringing down the bird.

Not that we give credence to the stories of
the condor's carrying off children ; indeed, the evi-
dence is against such a statement ; and still less
do we believe the accounts of their attacking men
and women. At all events. Sir Francis Head has
proved that a Cornish miner is a match for one of
these great vultures. Humboldt allows that two
of them would be dangerous foes when opposed to
one man ; but he frequently came within ten or
twelve feet of a rock on which three or four of
them were perched, and they never offered to mo-
lest him. Indeed, the Alpine lammergeyer,* the
Phene of Aristotle and ^Elian, is little inferior,
if not equal, to the condor in size, and, like the
condor, haunts great mountain chains. As the
condor is the great vulture of the New World,
this vulture-eagle holds its throne on the lofty
precipices of the old continent. On the Swiss
and German Alps, from Piedmont to Dalmatia,
in the Pyrenees, in the mountains of Ghilan and
Siberia, of Egypt and Abyssinia, this, the largest
of the European birds of prey, is on the watch
to scourge the country. With more of the eagle
than the vulture in its composition, and with
claws more fit for rapine than the nails of the
condor, it generally seeks for a living prey,
and, soaring with its mate above the hills and
valleys, pounces upon the lambs and other quad-
rupeds. The stories of its having carried off
children in its crooked talons wear a much greater
air of probability than such tales when applied to

* Gypaetus barbatus, Storr.

the condor, with its comparatively impotent foot.
The strength of the lammergeyer and its con-
formation are quite equal to such murderous acts ;
for a full grown one is four feet from beak to tail,
and nine or ten in alar extent. But the lammer-
geyer contents itself with a dead prey when no
better may be had, and Bruce gives an anecdote
of its pertinacity and audacity on one of these
occasions so graphically, that it would be unjust to
the reader to give it in other than the slandered
Abyssinian traveller's own words : —

Upon the highest top of the mountain Lamalmon,
while the servants were refreshing themselves from
that toilsome, rugged ascent, and enjoying the
pleasure of a most delightful climate, eating their
dinner in the outer air, with several large dishes
of boiled goat's flesh before them, this enemy, as
he turned out to be to them, appeared suddenly.
He did not stoop rapidly from a height, but came
flying slowly along the ground, and sat down close
to the meat, within the ring the men had made
round it. A great shout, or rather cry of distress.
called me to the place. I saw the eagle stand for
a minute, as if to recollect himself, while the
servants ran for their lances and shields. I walked
up as near to him as I had time to do. His atten-
tion was fully fixed upon the flesh. I saw him put
his foot into the pan, where was a large piece in
water, prepared for boiling ; but finding the smart
which he had not expected, he withdrew it, and
forsook this piece which he held.

There were two large pieces, a leg and a shoul-
der, lying upon a wooden platter ; into these he
trussed both his claws, and carried them off; but I
thought he looked wistfully at the large piece
which remained in the warm water. Away he
went slowly along the ground as he had come.
The face of the cliff over which criminals are
thrown took him from our sight. The Mahomet-
ans that drove the asses, who had suffered from the
hyaena, were much alarmed, and assured me of his
return. My servants, on the other hand, very
unwillingly expected him, and thought he had
already more than his share.

As I had myself a desire of more intimate ac-
quaintance with him, I loaded a rifle gun with ball,
and sat down close to the platter by the meat. It
was not many minutes before he came, and a pro-
digious shout was raised by my attendants, " He
is coming! he is coming!" enough to have dis-
couraged a less courageous animal. Whether he
was not quite so hungry as at first, or suspected
something from my appearance, I know not, but he
made a small turn, and sat down about ten yards
from me, the pan with the meat being between me
and him. As the field was clear before me, and I
did not know but his next move might bring him
opposite to one of my people, and so that he might
actually get the rest of the meat and make off, I
shot him with the ball through the middle of his
body, about two laches below the wing, so that he
lay down upon the grass without a single flutter.

Bruce gives the following dimensions of this
daring bird : —

From wing to wing he was eight feet four
inches ; from the tip of his tail to the point of his
beak, when dead, four feet seven inches ; he
weighed twenty-two pounds, and was very full of
flesh.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

5

But return we to our condor. It affords preg-
nant evidence of the care and attention exerted by
the authorities and keepers of the animals con-
fined in the garden of the Zoological Society of
London in the Regent's Park, when we find that
so many of them have not only shown a disposi-
tion to breed in their captivity, but that not a few
have actually reared healthy offspring under all
the disadvantages which a life so different from
that intended by Nature must, under any circum-
stances, produce. Some of these instances, if our
notes find favor in your eye, dear reader, will be
hereafter given. At present, we beg attention to
one where, with every wish to continue the spe-
cies, the parents seemed to give up incubation as
hopeless.

At the time the present note was taken the
female condor in the Regent's Park had laid seven
eggs. The first was laid on the 4th of March,

1844 ; the second on the 29th of April of the
same year ; the third on the 28th of February,

1845 ; the fourth on the 24th of April in that
year ; the fifth on the 8th of February, 1846 ; the
sixth on the 3rd of April, 1846 ; and the seventh
on the 7th of May, 1847.

On one occasion, I saw the condors with a
newly-laid white egg, some three or four inches
long, lying on the naked floor of their prison.
There was no appearance of a nest of any kind,
and there was something melancholy and yet
ludicrous in the hopeless expression with which
both the parents looked down at it. They
regarded the egg and then each other, as if they
would have said, if they could, " What are we to
do with it now we have got it?" And the mute
mutual answer of their forlorn eyes and dejected
heads was, evidently, " Nothing."

Well, at last, it was proposed that, as soon as
another egg was laid, it should be placed under a
hen. Accordingly, on the 7th of May, at half-
past seven o'clock, A. M., (I must be pardoned for
being somewhat particular on such an occasion,)
the newly -laid egg was put under a good motherly
looking nurse of the Dorking breed, and, as the
colors of hens as well as of horses are worthy
of note, let it be remembered that her color was
white, inclining to buff.

The place of incubation was a cage elevated
some distance above the floor in one of the
aviaries. The hen sat very close. Day after
day, week after week, passed away ; still the ex-
cellent nurse continued to sit. Day after day,
week after week, again rolled on, and the usual
period at which the anxious feathered mother
beholds her natural offspring was left far behind.
Still the good nurse sat on, till at last after an
incubation of fifty-four days, the young condor, on
the 30th of June, 1846, about six o'clock in the
morning, began to break the wall of its procreant
prison. The process of hatching was very slow.
The young bird was not extricated from the egg
until after twenty-seven hours, nor was it then
released — on the morning of the 1st of July —

without the assistance of the keeper, who found
it necessary to remove the shell, as the membrane
had got dry round the nestling. Thus came into
this best of all possible worlds the first condor
hatched in England. It had an odd appearance,
and seemed to wonder how it had got here. The
head appeared to be misshapen, for on the top of it
was what looked like an amorphous bladder of water
contained between the external skin and the skull.
This gradually disappeared, and when I first saw
it, on the same first of July, about four o'clock
in the afternoon, the head was properly shaped.
It was naked, and of a dark lead color ; and such
was the hue of the just visible comb (showing
that it was a male) and of the naked feet. With
these exceptions the young bird was covered with
a dirty white down, and looked healthy and vigor-
ous. On the evening of the day on which it was
hatched it ate part of the liver of a young rabbit.

The young condor was fed five times each day
with the fleshy parts of young rabbits ; at each
feed a piece about the size of a walnut was given,
and it was very fond of the liver. For the first
ten days it was fed, and after that time it pecked
the food from the hand of the keeper. It took,
no water, nor was any forced on it.

I find, also, the following in my note-book;: —

July 18. — The young condor continues tolhrive
apace, and the good hen that hatched- the egg
from which this portentous chick sprung still re-
mains in the elevated cage, and seems very much
attached to her charge. When feeding — for
which purpose she quits the nestling only twice
a day, hurrying back as if anxious to resume her
duty — she is fussy and fidgety (if there be such
words) till her hasty meals are ended. The
young condor's down is now changed to a more
gray hue, and the germs of the true feathers begin
to show themselves. The head and neck have
become blacker, and the budding excrescence of
the comb advances. The upper mandible of the
bill is slightly movable. The lower extremities
are become darker and very stout, but as yet too
weak to support the bird's weight.

May not this local, but no doubt natural weak-
ness, point to the solution of the continued close
attention of the hen! Her duty with her own
eggs is to hatch chickens that run very soon after
they have left the egg-shell, but till they are
strong enough to be able to trust to their lower
extremities she keeps them close, " hiving them,"
as the old wives say, carefully, till these lower
extremities, which are, in the nestlings of the
gallinaceous tribe, first well developed, shall be
sufficiently strong to carry them in search of food
and out of danger. The hen, in this instance,
finds that her Garagantua of a chick cannot walk,
and therefore goes on cherishing it and sitting'
close over it. I saw it fed about three o'clock in
the afternoon upon part of a young rabbit, nearly
the whole of which it had consumed in the course
of yesterday and to-day. When brought out it
shivered its callow wings and opened its mouth

6

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

like other nestlings, but it then uttered no cry.
It made much use of the tongue in taking the food
and in deglutition.

On my return from making these observations I
went to look at the old condors. Military bands
were playing, and the wind was very high. Both
birds were very much excited, the male espec-
ially. He spread and flapped his wings, pursuing
the female, as she walked backwards from him,
with his beak opposite and close to hers, and ges-
ticulating vehemently and oddly.

The next entry is a sad one : —

July 21, 1846. — The young condor, after thriv-
ing well to all appearance, died this morning.
The good hen, which had been most attentive to
it to the last, seemed to miss it much. The cry
of the young condor resembled the squeak of a rat,
and the dwelling-place of the hen and her charge
was infested by those predacious rodents. Some-
times they would squeak, and then the bereaved
foster-mother would approach the hole whence the
•squeak proceeded, listen, and abide there clucking,
ras if in hope of seeing her charge come forth.

In this case I was struck with the modification
• of instinct, or rather of the adjunct of something
closely resembling a reasoning power, on the part
of the Hen. In general, as soon as the days of
'her incubation are fulfilled the hen leaves the nest,
if the eggs are addled, or have not been hatched
from some other cause. But here she continued
'to sit more than double the usual time without
moving except for the purpose of taking food.
'Might it not be that she felt that life was in prog-
ress under her, and that her cnogyr) (storge) pre-
vailed with her not to abandon the embryo till the
•fulness of its time was come 1*

Again I observed that she made no attempt to
-solicit the young condor to feed, as hens do with

* " We cannot but Admire with Harvey," says Willugh-
by, " Borne of these natural instincts of birds, viz., that
almost all hen-birds should, with such diligence and pa-
tience, sit upon their nests night and day for a long time
i together, macerating and almost starving themselves to
death ; that they should expose themselves to such dan-
gers in defence of their eggs ; and if, being constrained,
•they sometimes leave them a little while, with such ear-
•nestness hasten back to them and cover them. Ducks and
^eese, while they are absent for a little while, diligently
cover up their eggs with straw. With what courage and
magnanimity do even the most cowardly birds defend their
reggs, which sometimes are subventaneous and addle, or
not their own, or even artificial ones ! Stupendous in
truth is the love of birds to a dull and lifeless egg, and
which is not likely with the least profit or pleasure to
recompense so great pains and care. Who can but admire
.the passionate affection, or rather fury, of a clucking hen,
which cannot be extinguished unless she be drenched in
•cold water 1 During this impetus of .mind, she neglects
•.•all things, and, as if she were in a frenzy, lets down her
wings, and bristles up her feathers, and walks up and
down reckless and querulous, puts other hens off their
nests, searching everywhere for eggs to sit upon ; neither
•doth she give over till she hath either found eggs to sit or
chickens to bring up ; which she doth, with wonderful
zeal and passion, call together, cherish, feed, and defend.
What a pretty ridiculous spectacle is it to see a hen fol-
Jowing a bastard brood of young ducklings (which she
hath hatched for her own) swimming in the water ! How
she often compasses the place, sometimes venturing in, not
without danger, as far as she can wade, and calls upon
them, using all her art and industry to allure them to
her !'»

their own chickens. She seemed to regard it as
something incomprehensible, but belonging to her ;
and looked on with evident complacency when the
keeper took it out to feed it on raw flesh, receiv-
ing it, after its meal, under her wings with a
comfortable cluck.

It is a well-known aphorism that the more per-
fect the order of the animal is, the larger is the
size of its offspring when it first enters into life.
Thus, as John Hunter observes, a new-born quad-
ruped is nearer to the size of the parents than a
bird just hatched, and a bird nearer than a fish.
Something may be, therefore, attributed to the
disproportioned bulk of the young condor; but
true as the maxim is, it does not follow that the
parent has the power of distinguishing size. In
birds such a power probably does not exist ; for
we know that the hedge-sparrow and oilier small
birds will go on feeding the enormous young
cuckoo till the poor benevolent dupes are almost
exhausted, before and after the intruder has shoul-
dered out their own eggs and little nestlings.

The sigot of the helpless young condor could
not fail to raise reflections ' in the most unobserv-
ing. There was the comparatively minute form,
which, if its life had been spared, would have
been developed to gigantic proportions ; and that
little, feeble, plumeless wing, was formed to bear
quill-feathers from two to three feet in length.
These noble quills are used as pens in the Cordil-
lera ; and in this country I have seen them trans-
formed into floats for the angler, of a. size and
finish to satisfy the most fastidious dandy disciple
of good honest Izaak Walton.

Two other raptorial birds come into the group,
though one of them, the California vulture, wants
the caruncle which distinguishes the condor. The
other is the king of the vultures.* The brilliant
colors of the head and neck of this last project it
upon the notice of the visitor who passes the place
of its confinement ; and there is reason for believ-
ing that the stories told of the oilier vultures, in
their free and natural state, standing respectfully
aloof till their king has finished his repast, are
not groundless, the respect being probably due to
the superior courage of the monarch.

Of the condors, two males and one female are
now alive in the garden of the society ; but no
egg has been laid since that whose history we
have attempted to give was deposited.

In the same garden the king vulture — this looks
very like poor dear Theodore Hook's story of the
cock maccaw's laying eggs — has laid, but it never
sat. The Chinese vulture has done the same, but
never attempted incubation. The wedge-tailed
eagle of New Holland, and the Kimmergeyer
sighing for her mate and her mountains, have
dropped eggs, but never attempted incubation.
The eagle owlf entered upon the business of the
continuation of the species with greater energy
and gravity. She laid and sat, but sat in vain ;
not an owlet rewarded her anxiety.

* Or, King Vulture — Sarooramphus Papa — Vultur Pa-
pa, Linn,
t Strii Bubo.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

The white-headed eagles seemed very much in
earnest. Of them the reader may know more
hereafter, if he should choose to kill time by tak-
ing up a continuation of these notes.

This, we are told, is a world of compensation,
though the compensation is too often terribly on
one side, as in the often-repeated case of English-
men being called upon to pay for " the vested
interests " of a nuisance that would not be tolerated
for three months in any city of civilized Europe
except London — Smithfield Market, for instance.
But still this best of all possible worlds is a world
of compensation. In obedience to this law, Mr.
Yarrell, in his excellent History of British Birds,
has recorded a most interesting account of a buz-
zard * hatching chickens, in order, no doubt, to
balance the fact of a hen hatching a condor.

A solitary male buzzard in our time made des-
perate love to the shoe of the gardener of the
Physic Garden at Oxford, with the gardener's foot
in the said shoe ; but Mr. Yarrell's story relates
to the gentler sex, and he prefaces it with an ob-
servation as to the extreme partiality of the com-
mon buzzard for the seasonal task of incubation
and rearing young birds.

The bird mentioned by Mr. Yarrell was kept
in the garden of the Chequers, in the good town
of Uxbridge, of ineffectual treaty memory. The
poor bird — she was well known to many a brother
of the angle, " now," as old Izaak hath it, " with
God " — manifested her inclination to frame a nest

* Buteo vulgaria.

by gathering and twisting about all the loose sticks
she could lay beak and claw on. The good mas-
ter of the house had compassion on her, furnished
her with twigs and all appliances and means to
boot, and the solitary creature went to work and
completed a nest. Two hens' eggs were put
under her ; she hatched them well and reared
them bravely. Her desire to sit was indicated by
scratching holes in the garden, and breaking and
tearing everything within reach of beak and talons.
Year after year did she hatch and bring up a
goodly troop of chickens, and in 1831 her brood
consisted of nine, after the loss of one, for she had
brought out ten. Upon one occasion her kind
master, to save her from what he thought the
ennui of sitting, put down to her a newly hatched
lot. Luckless little ones, she destroyed every chick
of them. The good man did wot know the animal
economy which makes the application of the eggs
to the inflamed breast of the female bird a balm,
rendering this labor of Jove twice blessed, aad
leading in its train all the maternal charities.
The ready-made nestlings were treated as intrud-
ing impostors; but to her own foster-chicks no
honest barn-door chuckie was ever more attentive ;
only when ilesh was given to her, and she broke
it up for her young family, she appeared mortified
that after taking a few morsels, they left her and
her oarrion to pick up the grain with which they
ware supplied.

Have we not something to answer for in con-
fining God's creatures in solitude where they can-
not fulfil the divine command?

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

LEAVES FROM

THE NOTE-BOOK
RALIST.

OF A NATU-

PART III. STORKS.

IF any philosopher should gird himself to the
task of tracing the vagaries of the Transmigrating
Ens, as it has been termed, and following the
spirit through its various phases, he would have
an amusing but a puzzling time of it, even though
he took Pythagoras for his guide. And yet that
doctrine of the Metempsychosis, founded not improb-
ably on the growth, dissolution, and regeneration
of animal and vegetable natures, raises thoughts
not to be hastily cast away. It mingles with our
reasonings, be they grave or gay ; suggests itself
to Hamlet when he discourses of imperial Caesar,
and to the wag who, after decking the last resting-

place *f Quin with thyme and
breathes the pious aspiration —

pot-marjoram.

And fat be the gander that feeds on his grave.

Bodies die but to revive. The carcass, uncon-
taminated by medical efforts to cheat the worm,
soon swarms with animal life in a different form ;
and the decayed vegetable revives in the mucor
which bursts from its dead fibres, to say nothing
of the hosts of minute insects which live, and
move, and have their being upon its remains.
And this, be it remembered, is only the first stage
patent to all eyes. But who shall say that when
the cycle is completed the dead body may not live
again as a perfect animal or vegetable, more per-
fect than when the sun first shone upon it in its
nascent state ?

In truth, all sublunary nature is apparently so
full that one may well understand the notion that
the quantity of matter is infinitesimally small and
the volume of spirit enormously great. Jupiter, it
is said, seeing this, threw down a capacious handful
of souls upon this petit tas de boue, and left them
to scramble for the few bodies open to them.

If such tales be true, happy must the struggling
soul have been that worked its way into the egg
of a stork, that personification of all the virtues.
Gratitude, temperance, chastity, piety — these were
a few of the qualities attributed to the bird by the
ancients. Welcome everywhere, and bearing a
charmed life, it was and is hailed as the harbinger
of spring and the destroyer of evil things. Even
the Dutchman grows animated when he sees the
stork return to the well-known nest, and expresses
his pleasure at beholding the snowy wader stalk
about his polders by a reduplication of puffs from
his eternal pipe. Nay, he has been known on
such an occasion to withdraw the reeking tube
from his Jips for a moment, and ask the frogs how
they liked their new king?

The disappearance of the storks in the winter
and their reappearance in the spring gave rise to
the same tales of brumal hybernation as were long
rife about the swallows ; and stories were told of
a concatenation of storks, joined head and tail
together, having been fished out of the water.

The Lake of Como, if we recollect right, was one
of the hybernacula out of which they were de-
clared to have been taken, apparently dead, but
revived by the fishermen, who restored animation
by placing them in a warm bath. And yet Pliny
had no doubt about their migration, and as little
that they arrived from a great distance, though he
says that in his time it was not known from what
country they came or whither they retired. Old
Belon, however, well knew that Africa was the
locality of their winter quarters; and he gives
evidence of their having been seen whitening the
plains of Egypt in September and October. The
same excellent ornithologist — blessings on him for
a good observer — beheld a large flock of them in
the act of migration, when he was at Abydos, in
the month of August. They came from the north,
and when they arrived at the Mediterranean Sea
they wheeled round and round, then broke into
companies, and proceeded no longer in one body.
Dr. Shaw, in his journey over Mount Carmel, saw
them coming from Egypt in flocks extending balf-
a-mile in breadth, each of which occupied three
hours in passing over. There are stories of their
being heralded in their flights by crows, who lead
the way ; others, again, say that a deadly enmity
exists between the two races, and that stout battles
have been witnessed between the storks and crows
in Egypt.

The advent of the crows is announced by their
cries, but the stork utters no vocal sound. This
silence probably gave rise to the notion entertained
by the ancients that the storks had no tongue.
Their ordinary mode of communication is by clat-
tering the mandibles like a pair of castanets.

This peculiarity was well known to the ancients.

Ipsa sibi plaudat crepitante ciconia rostro,

writes Ovid, (Metam. vi., 97,) and Dante refers to
it in his description of the agonies of the guilty in
the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth —

Eran 1'ombre dolenti nella ghiaccia ;
Mettendo i denti in nota di Cicogna.*

Large are the assemblies and sonorous the clatter-
ings that precede their autumnal migration. The
quaint Philemon Holland thus renders Pliny's
account of one of these gatherings, and making
allowance for the time when the Roman wrote,
there is little in it that has not been certified by
modern observers : —

When they be minded (writes the translator of
Plinies Naturall Historic) — wheii they be minded
to part out of our coasts, they assemble all togethnr
in one certain place appointed : there is not one
left out nor absent of their owne kind.unlesse it be
some that are not at libertie, but captive or in bond-
age. Thus (as if it had been published before by
proclamation) they rise all in one entire companie,
and away they flie. And albeit well knowne it
might be afore that they were upon their remove
and departure, yet was there never any man
(watched he never so well) that could perceive
them in their flight : neither do we at any time see
when they are coming to us, before we know that

* Inferno, canto xxxii., 1. 35, 36.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

they be alrcadie come. The reason is because they
doe the one and the other alwaies by night. And
notwithstanding that they flie too and fro from
place to place and make but one flight of it, yet be
they supposed never to have arrived at any coast
but in the night. There is a place in the open
plaines and champion countrey of Asia, called
Pithonos-Come : where (by report) they assemble
all together, and being met, keep a jangling one
with another ; but in the end, look which of them
lagged behind and came tardie, him they teare in
peeces, and then they depart. This also hath been
noted, that after the Ides of August they be not
lightly seene there.

Some affirme constantly that storkes have no
tongues. But so highly regarded they are for
slaying of serpents, that in Thessalie it is accounted
a capitall crime to kill a storke, and by law he is
punished as a fellon in the case of manslaughter.

In Oppian's time the knowledge of the where-
about of the storks had somewhat advanced, for
he speaks of accounts of some flying from Lycia,
and others from Ethiopia. But however doubtful
the ancients may have been as to the place where
these birds passed the winter, none but those who
delighted in marvels rather than facts discredited
their migration. Long before tho time of Pliny
and Oppian it had been written — " Even the
storke in the aire knoweth her appointed times,
and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow,
observe the time of their comming."*

Turn we now to the romantic history of the
white stork. Laomedon's lovely daughter, Pri-
am's charming sister, who shone among mortal
virgins like the moon amidst the stars, vaunted in
her pride that she was more beautiful than the
queen of heaven. Juno, who was not remarkable
for patience under such insults, uttered the fiat of
degradation ; and poor Antigone found her deli-
cate nose and exquisite mouth elongate into a red
horny beak, and her fair body stilted up on two
lofty skinny red legs, with nothing but the flat-
tened nails at the end of her attenuated toes, to
remind her of limbs cast in the most perfect femi-
nine mould. This form of the nails did not
escape Willughby, who says, writing of the bird —
" Its claws are broad, like the nails of a man ; so
that 7tluTv<ut*vxos will not be sufficient to differ-
ence a man from a stork with its feathers pluckt
off." Poor Antigone ! Instead of a king's
board graced with every delicacy, her table was
to be thereafter spread in the wilderness. But
the irritable and jealous goddess seems to have
had some touch of mercy ; for, according to the
legends, she left the transformed all her virtues
and amiable qualities when she punished her inso-
lence. Gratitude, temperance, chastity, piety,
were some of the bright spots left to console her
for her otherwise dark lot ; and they have, it
would seem, adorned the species ever since.

Of the gratitude of storks, there are stories
enough to fill a volume. They were said, on
their annual return to their nests on the house-

*Jerem. viii. 7. "Imprinted at London by Robert
Barker, Printer to the King's most Excellent Maiestie]
16.5."

tops, regularly to throw down to their landlord
one of their young ones by way of rent or tribute
— an act of justice executed a little at the expense
of their parental character. Well, if you are not
inclined to believe this, best of readers, listen to
the story of Heracleis of Tarentum, the good, the
chaste, the pious Heracleis. She, when the
angel of death smote her beloved husband, wept
long and sorely, but not like her of Ephesus.
No, she could no longer endure the sight of the
empty chair and the widowed couch, but set up
her abode at her husband's tomb. Here, as she
sat in her sorrow on a lovely summer's day, when
all was smiling but the dejected widow, she be-
held a pair of storks teaching their young ones to
fly. A weakling of infirm wings fell to the
ground and broke its leg. Heracleis had suffered
too much herself not to feel compassion for the
suffering of other creatures ; so she cherished the
young bird, bound up its wounds, applied healing
remedies, and when the cure was completed, gave
it its liberty. Away it flew ; and as she watched
its departure with a sigh, she was again left alone
with her grief.

The next year, as she was sitting at the door
of the tomb, with her pale features and mourning
robe, bathed in the beams of a vernal sun, she
beheld at a distance a stork skimming low along
the ground towards her. On came the bird : as
it approached she recognized her patient ; and
now it gently hovered over her, dropt from its
beak a stone into her lap, and departed. The
poor widow wondered what this might mean ; but
struck with the action, she took the stone in and
laid it down. At night the place shone as if
illuminated by torches, the radiant effulgence pro
ceeding from the precious gem — brighter than
that mountain of light, the koh-i-noor diamond—
which the stork had brought from distant lands to
his benefactress.

Stuff, sir !

Well, madam, if you will not believe -^Elian
here is, " Another Account," as the best possible
public instructors say.

A good-for-nothing fellow threw a stone at a
stork and broke its leg. The poor stork got to
its nest, and there lay. The women of the house
fed it, set its leg, and cured it, so that it was able
at the proper season to fly away with the rest.
Next spring, the bird, which was recognized by
the women from the kink in its gait, as the sailors
say, returned, and when they, attracted by its
gesticulations, approached, dropped gratefully at
their feet from its bill the finest diamond it had
been able to pick up in its travels.

Then there was the ancient stork, that had
nested for I don't know how many years on one
particular house. This well-bred bird never re-
turned in the spring without stalking about before
the door, and clattering his bill till the master
came out, when stork clattered more than ever, as
much as to say — " The top of the morning to
you, sir ; here I am again." To which the mas-
ter would reply — " Ah ! old fellow, how are

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

you?" When autumn came the same ceremony
was gone through ; the stork clattering — " Good-
by, your honor ;" and the master saying, " A
pleasant journey to you, old boy."

Another ancient, not contented'with mere empty
greeting, is stated to have brought every time he
returned a root of ginger, which, after a sufficient
exordium of clattering, was disgorged as a new-
year's gift to the master of the house.

Every one knows the story of the little dog
that brought a bigger one to revenge his wrongs
upon an over-grown bully ; but Oppian caps this
when he tells us that once upon a time a huge
serpent contrived year after year to insinuate
itself into the nest of a stork, and destroy its
young. At last the bereaved parents brought
back with them another bird, which had never
been previously seen, shorter than a stork, but
with a great sharp sword-like beak. When the
nestlings were ripe for slaughter, forth crept the
serpent ; but this time he was confronted by the
warlike ally, and a fierce combat ensued between
the bird and the reptile, which at length termi-
nated in the death of the murderous aggressor ; not,
however, with impunity on the part of the defend-
er of nestlings, which suffered so severely from
the poisonous bite of the snake that all his feath-
ers fell off, The grateful storks, seeing this,
would not leave their benefactor to his fate, but
cherished him, and delayed their departure till his
feathers grew again, and he was able to accom-
pany them ; when the whole party flew away
together.

Of their love of chastity and hatred of infidel-
ity, which they punish with the utmost severity,
the ancients tell equally edifying tales. Does a
storkess go wrong, her stork finds it out and takes
no notice to her ; but quietly flies off and brings
a crowd of avengers with him, who tear the adul-
tress to pieces. Beware all ye on whose house-
top a stork nestles ! Be sure he will find your
sin out. The slave was very joyous with his
beautiful but frail mistress in the absence of his
master ; till, one fine morning, the stork of the
house, taking him at advantage, flew at him and
pecked his eyes out.

When the storks return, the males are said to
precede the females some days, during which time
they refit the nests and make all ready and com-
fortable for their better halves. And when these
arrive, each flying to her own mate, ye gods !
what billing, and clattering, and hymeneal joys do
abound, if we are to believe the old chronicles.

For temperance, too, the stork was as highly
praised by the ancients as Father Mathew is by
the moderns.

But the piety of the bird ! Ah, there was its
strong point. Did it not give the hint for the
Leges Ciconiarite, by which children were com-
pelled to support their parents, and are they
not law to this day ? If you doubt, turn to the
Birds of Aristophanes, and his sharp satire upon
the unplumed biped there extant.

Did not the pious ^Eneas, when he bore the

good Anchises on his shoulders, learn from the
stork which, even when danger did not threaten,
and his aged parent had been obliged to take to
the nest again in his second chickhood, carried
the infirm ancient out for an airing on his more
juvenile shoulders? What says the old French
quatraine ?

Le Cicogneau, ayant prins sa croissance
Porte et nourrit ses pe're et we're vieux.
Ainsi chacun d'aider soit envieux
Son pere vieil tombe en decadence.

And the parental was equal to the filial piety
of these birds. Witness the true story of th'e
devoted mother at the great fire of Delft. The
flames raged and crackled on every side : they
gained the roof where the nest with its callow
young lay. The distracted parent tried in vain,
by every means in her power, to convey her
young from the danger, but her most strenuous
efforts were unavailing ; and then, singed with the
fire and half-suffocated by the smoke, she spread
her wings over them, pressed them to her bosom,
and perished with them.

So much for what may be termed the good
moral qualities of the stork ; now let us take a
glance at its physical structure.

Mounted on two long bare legs covered with a
scaly skin, fit armor against the tooth of Cleopatra's
asp, the light body is justly balanced. The toes
are webbed to the first joint from the divarication ;
so that, if in wading it should suddenly get out of
its depth, the safety of the bird is provided for.
The extensive wings, framed for wafting the
animated vessel on its lofty aerial voyage, are
worked by powerful muscles ; while the head,
thrown back by the long neck on the body, lies
compact, and the extended legs aid the compara-
tively short tail in regulating the course of the
animated balloon. When on the feed the neck is
either stretched out, or, if the bird be watching for
its prey, drawn back upon the shoulders, ready to
dart forth the spear-like beak in a moment. Ser-
pents, lizards, fish, and frogs, are its favorite food,
and hence the respect in which it is held by all
nations to whom it comes a welcome and regular
visitor. Toads it will eat if pressed by hunger,
but not for choice, eschewing most probably the
acrid exudation which is discharged from the
tubercles of that reptile's skin.

He who in the summer glides near the banks
of what was once the silver Thames sees the
tempting bait of " LIVE FISH" hung out from
many a sign, which too often lies like a bulletin.
Now the stork's repast is very frequently a truly
animated one, and he not unfrequently .feels the
inconvenience of a too lively dinner, anxious to
escape by one of the doors mentioned by Dr. Last
in the course of his examination. " I know them,"
saith the worthy Joannes Faber, " who have
learned by ocular inspection that storks, when such
serpents as they swallow passed alive through
their bodies (as they will do several times,) use
to clap their tails against a wall so long till they
feel the serpents dead within them."

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

Three or four white eggs, with a slight tinge
of buff, suboval, some two inches and ten lines in
length, and about one inch eleven lines broad, are
deposited by the white stork in its ample nest.
The parents feed their nestlings after the manner
of pigeons, by inserting their own bills within
those of their young, and imparting from their
own stomach the partly digested remains of the food
which they have last taken.

That the white stork does not scrupulously
confine itself to a fish, frog, and serpent diet, those
know to their cost who have suffered it to stalk
about near the breeding-places where the wild
duck hides her nest. The highly moral bird,
whose piety is blazoned in books of emblems, car-
rying his revered parent on his shoulders, and
held sacred in so many cities, (where, doubtless,
they keep their weather eyes open upon their
juvenile stray poultry,) notwithstanding his solemn
gait, is a bit of a Pecksniff in his way. After
standing stock still in a musing attitude, as if he
were above the vanities of this world, he has
been seen to march slowly by the side of the orna-
mental lake with the air of a contemplative phi-
losopher, and then disappear among the bushes.
Before his disappearance a snug nest near the
point where he vanished, as if to continue his
meditations undisturbed by human eye, has been
seen full of goodly little dusky powder puffs of
wild ducklings, and somehow or other, when he
has emerged from the wilderness, it has been
soon after discovered that the nest was empty.
This feathered ogre was in the habit of visiting
the nests day by day, biding his time till incubation
was fully complete, when he swallowed every
squab that had come to light. But every living
thing eats only to be eaten. As far as humanity
is concerned the white stork appears to have gone
out of fashion, and come in again as a savory dish.

Cornelius Nepos, who died in the daies of Au-
gustus Caesar Emperor, in that chapter, where he
wrote that a little before his time men began to feed
and cram blackbirds and thrushes in coupes, saith
moreover, that in his daies storks were holden for
a better dish at the bourd than cranes. And yet
see how in our age now no man will touch a storke
if it be set before him upon the bourd ; but every
one is readie to reach unto the crane, and no dish
is in more request.*

Horace, in his bitter second satire,f writes : —

Tutus crat rhombus, tutoquc ciconia nido :
Donee vos auctor docuit Prastorius.

And the gay Petronius rattles along the lines, in
which we hear the clatter of the bird's beak : —

Cicojiia etiam grata, peregrina, hospita,
Pietaticultrix, gracilipes, crotalistria, .
Avis exsul hiemis, titulus tepedi ternporis,
Nequitioe nidum in cacabo fecit meo.J

Old Belon (anno 1555) quotes the passage from
Pliny with the following comment : — " Voulant
dire que les Grues estoyent en delices, et les cicog-
nes n'estoyent touchees de personne." But he
adds, " Maintenant les Cicognes sont tenues pour
viande royale."
* Holland's Pliny. t L. 49. * Satyricon, c. 55.

We do not trace it in our household books.
Indeed, the bird never comes to these islands regu-
larly ; and but a few instances of its presence here
in a free state are recorded, though it is so frequent
on the continent, and much further north — Russia
for example.

In the old Pharmacopoeia, which it must be
owned contained many a rich prescription, the
white stork made a great show. He who ate the
flesh, roasted or boiled, might safely go to the wars,
as far as his nerves and joints were concerned ;
and it was considered equally potent against the
more cruel domestic enemies, gout and sciatica.
A diet on the young was equally efficient in dis-
orders of the eyes ; and their ashes made an infal-
lible collyrium. To cure paralysis you had only
to catch a young stork, clap its bill under its wing,
suffocate it under a pillow, chop it up, put the
pieces into an alembic, save the distilled liquor, and,
after having bathed the disabled limb with a decoc-
tion of crabs — without salt, mind you — anoint it
with the aforesaid essence of stork, and follow this
course alternately ; when, if the patient were not
cured, 't was a wonder. If you should have some
misgivings concerning the efficacy of the nestlings,
consult Leonellus Faventinus, and he will tell you
that an old stork, plucked and simmered in oil, till
the flesh separates from the bones, is just as good
against the same disease as oil of vipers. Take
one ounce of camphor, with a drachm of the best
amber, place it in the belly of an exenterated
young stork caught before he can fly, distil it, and
Andreas Furnerius will assure you that you have an
infallible cosmetic, which we venture to state will
mend complexions as effectually as the Circassian
Bloom or Rowland's Kalydor. Pliny will convince
you that the stomach of the bird was a specific
against all poisons, and Belon corroborates him.
In short, not to weary you, dear reader, the stork,
according to these wise men, was a universal med-
icine chest.

The bird was looked up to by more than one
profession. The gardener looked at its bill, and
named one of his most favorite groups of plants
Pelargonium; the chemist beheld it, and fashioned
his retort ; and the apothecary took a hint from
the practice of the bird about which we care not
to be particular, though some will have it that it
was the ibis, and not the stork, which made the
suggestion. And here we may observe, that Be-
lon and others are of opinion that our bird is the
white ibis of Herodotus (Euterpe, 76 ;) but it
should be remembered that the moderns, as well as-
the delightful Halicarnassian, record, and with
truth, a white as well as a dark species of ibis ;
and it is not less true that there is a black as well,
as a white stork.

The black stork* is the very opposite to th"»
white species, in manners as well as in color, fly-
ing from the haunts of men as eagerly as they are-
sought by the latter. The food is nearly the samo
as that of Ciconia alba, with, however, a greateu
leaning towards a fish diet.

* Ciconia nigra.

12

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

Its visits to this country are rare. Colonel
Montagu's tame black stork was slightly shot in
the wing on Sedgemoor, near the parish of Stoke
in Somersetshire, in May, 1814. The bone was
not broken, and the bird lived in the colonel's pos-
session, in good health, for more than a year. Like
the white stork, it frequently rested upon one leg ;
and if alarmed, particularly by the approach of a
dog, it made a considerable noise by reiterated
snapping of the bill, similar to that species. It
soon became docile, and would follow its feeder
for a favorite morsel — an eel. When very hun-
gry it crouched, resting the whole length of the
legs upon the ground, and seemed to supplicate for
food by nodding its head, flapping its wings, and
forcibly expelling the air from the lungs with
audible expirations. Whenever it was approached,
the blowing, accompanied by repeated nodding of
the head, was provoked. It was of a mild and
peaceful disposition, very unlike many of its con-
geners ; for it never used its formidable bill offen-
sively against any of its prisoned companions, and
even submitted peaceably to be taken up without
much struggle. From the manner in which it
was observed to search the grass with its bill, there
could be no doubt that reptiles form part of its
natural food ; and the colonel inferred that even
mice, worms, and the larger insects probably, add
to its usual repast. When searching in thick grass,
or in the mud, for its prey, the bill was kept
partly open. " By this means," says the colonel,
" I have observed it take eels in a pond with great
dexterity : no spear in common use for taking that
fish can more effectually receive it between its
prongs than the grasp of the stork's open mandi-
bles. A small eel has no chance of escaping
when once roused from its lurking-place. But the
stork does not gorge its prey instantly like the cor-
morant ; on the contrary, it retires to the margin
of the pool, and there disables its prey by shaking
and beating it with its bill before it ventures to
swallow it. I never observed this bird attempt to
swim ; but it will wade up to the belly, and occa-
sionally thrust the whole head and neck under
water after its prey. It prefers an elevated spot
on which to repose ; an old ivy-bound weeping
willow, that lies prostrate over the pond is usually
resorted to for that purpose. In this quiescent
state the neck is much shortened by resting the
hinder part of the head on the back, and the bill
rests on the fore part of the neck, over which the
feathers flow partly so as to conceal it, making a
very singular appearance."

In this attitude the bird may be seen in the Zo-
ological Garden in the Regent's Park, where one
has lived many years, and has stood for his por-
trait to most of the ornithological writers of the
day. Its likeness illustrates the works of Bennett,
.'Selby, Gould, Meyer, and Yarrell.

Truly Brahminical and reflective is the air of
one of these old stagers. Motionless in the atti-
tude above described stands the black philosopher.
It is a lovely summer's day, but the sun and the
.gentle breeze floating the clouds under the blue

sky move him not. A slight motion in the eye
may be detected as one of the giddy young spar-
rows with which the Zoological garden is infested
flits by, but he stirs not. At last a luckless new-
fledged one passes within reach of our philosopher.
Quick as thought the trenchant bill is darted for-
ward, and — crack ! — the little bird is seized and
swallowed.

Gesner recommends that the bird should be first
boiled and then roasted. He describes the flesh as
of a reddish tinge, like that of a salmon, and to
his taste it seemed good and sweet ; but he adds
that the skin is very tough, and if this were to be
taken off there would, probably, be no need of the
boiling.

The visitors to the garden in the Regent's Park
will have noticed a queer, uncouth, bald, scabrous-
headed, feathered form, with an enormous beak,
now marching in comic stateliness, at another time
standing on one or two stilts of legs with an air
of drunken gravity, and again seated with the
whole length of legs stretched out and resting upon
them, as the black stork is above described to have
rested. It is now some sixty years since this odd
form was first introduced to the ornithologists of
this country. At first it was commonly known by
the name of the " Adjutant," the title conferred
on it in Calcutta. Dr. Latham first described this
Bengal adjutant, the argala of the natives, in his
general synopsis, as " the gigantic crane." But,
in truth, there are no less than three species of
these worthies, forming a natural group of gigan-
tic storks, not only cherished, like the white stork,
for their services to man, but valued for the beau-
tiful plumes called "Marabous," from the Senegal
name of the African species. The extreme light-
ness of these long downy feathers, which are trans-
ferred from the sides beneath the wings and from
under the tail of the bird to wave over the brow
of beauty, where they float with every breath ot
air, may be conceived from Latham's experiment.
He weighed one of them, which was eleven inches
and three quarters in length and seven in breadth,
and balanced only eight grains.

Temminck, in his Planches coloriees, has well
pointed out the difference between the marabou of
Africa, the argala of the Asiatic continent, and the
insular species — probably the boorang-cambing or
boorong-oolar of Marsden — inhabiting Java and
the neighboring islands. The Javanese bird sep-
arated by Dr. Horsfield, is probably identical with
the Sumatran species.

Second only to the vultures in the eagerness
with which these feathered scavengers turn the
most disgusting substances into nutriment, the adju-
tants and marabous are safe from all annoyance,
and stalk about among the dwellings of man, the
privileged abaters of all nuisances. Carrion, flesb
and bone, everything, in short, that offends the eye
and the nose, enters the omnivorous maw of " the
large throat," " the bone-eater," " the bone-
taker," as this voracious utilitarian is in some
places termed. Snakes, lizards, frogs, and small
quadrupeds and birds, have small chance of life

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

13

when they fall in its way ; and as the size of the
devourer calls for a vast supply, its consumption
of both living and dead things is enormous.

But why should the bird have been called an
adjutant? — he looks more like an ancient, me-
thinks.

Very good, sir ; but to say nothing of his staid
and solemn gait, just behold him afar off. " I
have been told," says Latham, " that the bird has
obtained this last name of adjutant from its appear-
ing, when looked on in front at a distance, like a
man having a white waistcoat and breeches."

A lofty percher, and a high flyer, so as to give
a wide sweep to its ken, in order that it may per-
ceive any incumbrance to the land which it may
clear away, the bird is gifted with powerful vision,
and appliances to assist in keeping it up in the air.
It has a cervical or sternal pouch, more or less de-
veloped in each of the species, which depends
more than a foot in the argala, but much less in
the marabou. This, as well as the skin at th«
back of the head, can be inflated at the will of the
bird ; and both, doubtless, assist its buoyancy.
From its high roost it looks down, like a free-
booter, from its tower : and thereby hangs a tale.

2

Almost every living creature may be made a
pet ; and Smeathman noticed a marabou which had
arrived at such preferment. Roosting high upon
the cotton trees, it would sit motionless, till it de-
scried from a great distance the servants bringing
the dishes to the dinner-table. Then down it
came, and took its place behind its master's chair.
But it was hard to keep such a portentous piece
of machinery as its enormous bill idle in the pres-
ence of so many good things ; and the servants
were armed with switches to prevent it from help-
ing itself. Notwithstanding all their vigilance,
however, a Whole boiled fowl would every now
and then vanish from the dish, and disappear at a
single gulp into the capacious crop of the pet.

The Jabirus, (Mycteria,) of which there are
three species — in Asia, South America, and Aus-
tralia— are closely allied to the family of storks,
and especially to the gigantic group which we
have here attempted to sketch.

We cannot learn that any of the storks kept in
the Regent's Park have attempted incubation.
The Marabou stork, indeed, dawdled about, and
made a nest, such as it was, one season, but no
egg was laid.

14

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATU-
RALIST.

PART IV.

AFRICA, of all the quarters of the old world, is
the country of wonders. Take up a steady-going
book of travels, or the Arabian Nights, what region
like Africa 1 Open a volume of natural history,
the older the better, and the African marvellous
forms throw all the others into shade. Did not the
phoenix live there, and make its appearance among
the Heliopolitans only once in five hundred years ?
He came on the death of his sire in shape and size
like an eagle, with his glorious particolored wings
of golden hue set off with red, dutifully bearing
from Arabia the body of his father to his burial-
place in the temple of the sun, and there piously
deposited the paternal corpse in the tomb.

But how did the phoenix carry him to the grave ?
As the kite carried Cock Robin, I suppose.

No madam ; he brought his revered, deceased
parent in this manner. He first formed a large
egg of myrrh, and then, having by trial ascertained
that he could carry it, he hollowed out the artificial
egg, put his parent into it, stopped up the hole
through which he had introduced the body, with
more myrrh, so that the weight was the same as the
solid egg of myrrh, and performed the funeral in
Egypt.*

If you would see the manner of his death, turn
to the Portraits d'Oyseaux, Animoux, Serpens,
Herbes, Arbres, Hommes et Femrnes (T Arable et
Egypte, observez par P. Belon du mans ;f and
there you will behold " Le Phoenix selon que le
vulgaire a costume de le portraire" on his fiery
funeral pile, gazing at a noon-day radiant sun with
as good eyes, nose, and mouth, as ever appeared
over mine host's door, with the following choice
morsel of poetry : —

O du phoenix la divine excellence !
Ayant vescu seul sept cens soixante ans,
II meurt dessus des ramees d'ancens :
Et de sa cendre un autre prend naissance.

It is to be hoped, for the sake of the son, that
this is the correct version. • The carriage of ashes
from Arabia to Egypt, wrapped up in myrrh, is a
very different task from the porterage of a dead
body thence and thither.

Some, again, declare that the bird never died
at all ; but that when Age " clawed him in his
clutch," and he found himself not quite so jaunty
as in the vaward of his youth, he collected the
choicest perfumed woods of Araby the blest,
waited patiently for fire from heaven to kindle
the " spicy" pile, burnt away what we have heard
termed " his old particles" and came forth as if he
had drunk of the renovating elixir of life.

But what right had the phoenix to such pleasant
immortality ?

Because he never ate the forbidden fruit.

Moreover, there is a place in Arabia, near the

* Herodotus, Euterpe.

t Paris, 1557.

city of Buto, to which Herodotus went on hearing
of some winged serpents ; and when he arrived
there, he saw bones and spines of serpents in such
quantities as it would be impossible to describe :
there they were in heaps, and of all sizes. Now
this place is a narrow pass between two mountains,
opening into a spacious plain contiguous to that of
Egypt ; and it is reported, says he of Halicarnas-
sus, that, at the commencement of spring, winged
serpents fly from Arabia towards Egypt, but the
ibises meet them at the pass, and kill them ; for
which service the ibis is held in high reverence

the Egyptians.*

The " serpent selle" that fled near Mount Sinai,
figured by Belon, was probably one of this ghastly
revv of invaders.

And here a word for Herodotus, who has been
accused of all sorts of Munchausenisms. It will be
generally found, that whatever he says he himself
saw has been corroborated by modern eye-witnesses.
In the case of the phoenix he writes — " They say
that he has the following contrivance, which, in
my opinion, is not credible ;" and then he relates
the story of the egg of myrrh, and of the son's
carrying the father's body into Egypt. Again, he
heard of winged serpents, but says he saw the
bones of serpents, which he doubtless did ; and after
describing the black ibis which fights with the
serpents, at the conclusion of the chapter he evi-
dently alludes to the report, when he says that the
form of the serpent is like that of the water-snake,
but that he has wings without feathers, and as like
as may be to the wings of a bat.

When we take a glance at the map, and see
what an enormous area of African territory is still
an undiscovered country, even in this age of enter-
prise, can we wonder that romance has been busy
with the vast and unknown tracts T Many of the
animals which are known to us are of extraordinary
shape and habits ; and it was but the other day
that Professor Owen described a new species of
anthropoid apes, the Gorilla, more horrible in
appearance than any phantom that Fuseli ever
imagined. Look at the proportions of the giraffe,
with its prehensile tongue and its mode of progres-
sion, by moving two legs on the same side together,
so that both feet are off the ground at the same
time. But we must not multiply examples which
will occur to most of our readers.

A few years only have elapsed since the giraffe
has been made familiar to modern Europeans, and
in no country have so many been kept together as
in the British islands. In the garden of the
Zoological Society they have bred regularly and
well, and the offspring, with one exception, have
lived and thriven. Still there are three huge
African forms which have never yet made their
appearance in that extensive and noble vivarium —
the African elephant, the hippopotamus, and the
African rhinoceros, of which last there are several
species. By the enterprise of the society, aided
by the prudent zeal of Mr. Mitchell, we may soon

* Euterpe, 74.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

15

have the satisfaction of beholding the two first of
these gigantic pachyderms in the garden at the
Regent's Park.

And here we cannot but congratulate those who
delight in zoology — and who, nowadays, does not ?
— upon the happy change which has passed over
that noble and now well-conducted establishment,
since Mr. Mitchell, favorably known for his attain-
ments in that branch of science, and gifted with
the command of a ready and accurate pencil, has
held the office of secretary. A healthy and com-
fortable air pervades the place. The habits of the
animals are studied, and confinement made as little
irksome as possible. Communications are opened
with foreign powers, and new forms continually
flow in consequent upon a wise liberality.

I am just returned from visiting the greyhounds
ibout to be sent by the Zoological Society to
Abbas Pasha, who has already caused one young
hippopotamus to be taken from the White Nile. It
is now under the kind care of the Hon. C. A.
Murray* at Cairo, where it safely arrived on the
14th of November last, when it was flourishing,
enjoying a bath of the temperature of the river,
and delighting everybody by its amiable and docile
qualities. This most valuable gift was accom-
panied by a fine lioness and a cheetah ; and Mr.
Murray was further informed by his highness the
Viceroy of Egypt that a party of his troops re-
mained out on the White Nile, expressly charged
with the duty of securing a young female hippo-
potamus, destined also for the society.

If fortune be but propitious — if no casualty
should arise to disappoint our hopes, it is not im-
probable that in the merry month of May two
hippopotami may be presented to the wondering
eyes of the visitors to the Regent's Park. The
Romans, who saw in their day every known crea-
ture that the Old World produced, were made
familiar with this uncouth form — this huge in-
corporation of life — at their shows and shambles
of men and beasts, when both fell slaughtered as
the crowning excitement of the arena. But no
living hippopotamus has yet been seen on British
ground.

The King of Dahomy, the steps of whose throne
are formed of the skulls of hi* enemies, and who
commands an army of plump, well-fed Amazons,
had never seen a peacock. The Zoological
Society, longing for an African elephant, sent over
to his majesty a gift of pea-fowls, the cocks having
first been shorn of their tail — or rather back-
feathers ; for the feathers springing from the
back arrange themselves into that magnificent iri-
descent circle, and are supported by the caudal
feathers, when Juno's bird shines out in all its
splendor, and, as the nursery-maids term it,
" spreads his tail."

But why dock the peacocks ?

Because, if they had been sent with their trains
on, they would have presented such a ragged ap-

* Zoologists owe a large debt of gratitude to Mr. Mur-
ray, for the unwearied activity, tact, skill, and care,
which he has exerted to procure curious living animals
for this country.

pearance to the royal eyes, after being cooped up
on their voyage — to say nothing of the irritation
to the system of the birds themselves from their
bedraggled and begrimed plumage, or of the acci-
dents of pitch and tar — that the king might have
well questioned the faith of those who had filled
his mind with the glories of this recipient of the
eyes of Argus, and his blood-drinker might have
been called into action. No, the train-feathers
were most wisely cut, and, with the .birds, a well-
executed drawing of a peacock in all its glory
was sent, and his majesty was informed, that
when they moulted, and the new feathers came to
perfection, the effect would be similar to the
drawing, but very superior.

With the present, a letter — grandis epistola —
was sent, besealed and beribanded, together with
a list of the society from which the present came.
His majesty listened in silence while one name
well-known to scientific Europe after another was
pronounced, and the king made no sign ; but
when that of Lord Palmerston was enunciated, the
royal voice interrupted the recitation of the bead-
roll with, " Ah, I know that man !"

Then the peacocks were paraded, and, even in
their curtailed state, admired, and the king gave
directions to his Amazons to seek out a wild fe-
male elephant, with a young one of an age fit to
be separated from the mother ; and when they
had found her, their orders were to kill the hap-
less parent and to save the offspring as a gift to
the Zoological Society of London.

The lamented death of Mr. Duncan, who, take
him all in all, was, perhaps, the very man of all
others for keeping up our relations with this grim
potentate, may possibly act unfavorably for the
interests of the society, but we have so much con-
fidence in the energy of the management, that we
doubt not that this misfortune, great as it is, will
not be suffered long to cloud the fair prospects
which were opened to the longing eyes of natural-
ists and the sight-seeing public.

Just look at the announcement which the coun-
cil of the Zoological Society have been enabled to
make for the current year. They state that thev
have already received advice of collections of va
rious importance, which are in progress of forma
tion, or already shipped from :—

Singapore — by Capt. the Hon. H. Keppel,
R. N.

Ceylon — by A. Grant, Esq., M. D., and A.
Grace, Esq., Deputy Queen's Advocate.

Bombay — by Alexander Elphinston, Esq., and
A. Shaw, Esq., H. E. I. C. Civ. S.

Whydah— by J. Duncan, Esq., H. B. M.
Vice-Consul.

Sta. Lucia — by Lieut. Tyler, R. E.

South Carolina — by J. Davis, Esq., M. D.

As long as the president and council do their
duty in this way, and consider the instruction and
amusement of thousands, as they have done, by
lowering the price of admission on Mondays to
sixpence, they will receive the support of the pub-
lic ; and they deserve it.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

16

Of the African form of rhinoceros, three spe-
cies— Rhinoceros bicornis, Rhinoceros keitloa, and
Rhinoceros simus — are preserved in the well-ar-
ranged zoological collection of the British Mu-
seum, which owes so much to the energetic care
of Mr. Gray ; nor do we despair of seeing some,
if not all, of these great pachyderms in life and
health in the Regent's Park. Last year the
Asiatic rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Indicus) died there,
after a healthy existence of fifteen years in the
garden. The cause of death, apparently, was
inflammation of the lungs — a disease incident to the
damp and foggy atmosphere arising from the un-
drained clay soil, which Carrie's off so many of the
animals confined there. When will the govern-
ment take in hand the long-promised work of
draining that park? All ye dwellers in that cap-
tivating but — during certain months, when moist-
ure is most prevalent — dangerous locality, read
the well-written and well-considered report of Mr.
Donaldson. The comfortable dowagers now take
their airings without fear of the dashing, well-
mounted highwaymen, who formerly took toll in
Marylebone Fields ; but malaria still lurks there,
shrouded in the mist that rises from the marshy
ground and that ornamental but unblessed lake —
for no stagnant water resting upon a basin of clay
can ever carry healing on the wings of its evap-
oration.

But to return to the deceased rhinoceros. On
dissection it was manifest that the animal had
broken a rib, probably in throwing itself heavily
down to rest in its uncouth manner. This frac-
ture might have injured the lungs at the moment,
and the subsequent anchylosis probably produced
a pressure which accelerated the disease. Short-
ly before death the animal strained to vomit, with-
out effect, with the exception of some froth tinged
with blood at the mouth ; and soon afterwards
bloody matter was discharged at the nose. These
are not pleasant particulars ; but these lines may
meet the eyes of some of those interested in the
management of the animals, and may afford hints
for the future.

Poor fellow, he was stupidly good-natured in
the main, and would let the visitors rub his nose
or his horn — which, by the way, he never per-
mitted to grow, but kept it constantly rubbed
down — or tickle him about the eye, or place their
hands in the folds of his stout, mail-like,, buff coat,
where the skin, as we heard an honest yeoman,
who was making the experiment, say, was " as
so£ as a lady's!" He was very good friends
with poor old Jack the elephant, now dead and
gone, notwithstanding the stories of the violent
antipathy which the two huge beasts bear to each
other, and how the rhinoceros runs his horn at
last into the elephant's belly, and how the blood
of the elephant runs into the eyes of the rhinoce-
ros and blinds him, when the roc, or ruk, pounces
upon the combatants, and carries them both off in
his claws. The elephant used to tickle him with
his trunk, and stroke his ears, now and then giv-
ing his tail a sly pull , upon which the rhinoceros

would cut a clumsy caper, wheel round, and nib-
ble the elephant's trunk with his huge flexible
lips. He was fond of going into the capacious
tank, which served as a bath for him and the el-
ephant, who were alternately let out into the en-
closure ; the gambols before-mentioned having
been played through the iron railing, when the
elephant was expatiating in the great enclosure,
and the rhinoceros was out in the small space be-
fore its apartment.

When the rhinoceros first took to the water,
there was a marked difference between his obsti-
nate stupidity and the sagacity of the elephant
under the same circumstances. The bottom of
the tank, which is surmounted by an elevated
coping, gradually inclines from the entrance, till,
at the opposite extremity, it is deep enough to
permit an elephant of full height, and of the mas-
sive proportions of poor Jack, to submerge the
whole of its gigantic body ; and most gratifying
it was to see Jack enjoy the cooling comforts of
an entire submersion, now dipping his huge head
beneath the surface, and presently raising it again,
again to plunge it out of sight. The rhinoceros
walked in well enough down the gradual descent,
and when he got out of his depth swam boldly
to the opposite extremity. Once there, however,
he seemed to have no idea of the possibility of re-
turning, but remained plunging and making fruit-
less efforts to get out over the raised coping
while he was in the deep water, where the wall
went sheer down and there was no foothold. It
was rather a nervous time for those who wit-
nessed the violent and ungainly efforts of the
brute ; for it was feared that he would then and
there tire himself out, and sink exhausted. At
last, when almost overworn by his useless toil, he
was half-forced, half-coaxed round, and when his
head was turned towards the entrance, he swam
thither till he found footing, and then walked out.

His muscular power was prodigious. The iron
railing of the enclosure was strengthened by great
iron spurs at regular distances. He would insert
the anterior part of his enormous head between the
spur and the upright, and then give powerful
lateral wrenches till he fairly prized it off. Once
he got out, and, without doing further mischief,
terminated his ramblings with a pas seul in a bed
of scarlet geraniums : the condition of the par-
terre after the performance may be imagined. He
was then secured, and led back to his place of
confinement.

There was a tortoise-like look about him that
was very striking. The curiously-formed upper
lip, the testudinous look of his thick, armor-like
skin, his legs and feet, all favored the notion of a
huge warm-blooded creature made after the pattern
of the cold-blooded testudinata, with improvements.
For he was active in his way, and when excited
his rush was terrific. The noise of the roller,
when the gardeners were rolling the gravel-walk
that flanks the place where he was suffered to go
at large, had the most exciting effect upon him.
He would be standing perfectly still at the further

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

17

end of the enclosure, and the moment he heard the
noise of the roller in motion, round he would turn,
and rush down towards it in a rampant state, till
he was brought up by the strong iron railing,
which those who saw these paroxysms began to
think must go down like reeds before him.

If we have no immediate prospect of beholding
the living forms of the African species of this
genus, we have a very fair chance of soon seeing
the two other pachyderms mentioned above ; and
a slight sketch of their habits and history may not
come amiss to those who are not merely content
with sight-seeing, but like to know something
about what they see.

To begin, then, with the African elephant —
Elephas Africanus. Notwithstanding the accounts
frhich we read relative to the enormous stature of
this species in the narratives of travellers who
have come suddenly upon them, the better opinion
is that it is smaller than the Asiatic elephant.
The principal differences are visible in the head,
ears, and nails of the feet. The contour of the
head is round, and the forehead is convex instead
of concave : the ears are considerably longer than
those of its Asiatic congener, and on each hind-
foot the African elephant has only three nails,
while the Asiatic has four.

The following dimensions of a male elephant,
which was killed near Bm, some ten miles from
Kouka, are given by Major Denham, who arrived
at the place where the huge quarry lay just as the
elephant, which was not more than twenty-five
years old, had breathed his last : —

Length from the proboscis to the

tail, 25 ft. 6 inches.

Proboscis, 7 6

Small teeth, 2 10

Foot longitudinally, 1 7

Eye, 0 2 by 1£

From the foot to the hip-bone, . . 9 6

From the hip-bone to the back, . . 3 0

Ear, 2 2 by 2 t>

But he says that he had seen much larger
elephants than this alive ; some, he adds, he
should have guessed to be sixteen feet in height,
and with tusks probably exceeding six feet in
length. Major Denham, however, acknowledges
that the elephant whose measurement is above
given, which was the first he had seen dead, was
considered of more than common bulk and stature.

This unfortunate animal was brought to the
ground by hamstringing, and was eventually de-
spatched by repeated wounds in the abdomen and
proboscis : five leaden .balls had struck him about
the haunches, in the course of the chase, but they
had merely penetrated a few inches into his flesh,
and appeared to give him but little uneasiness.
The whole of the next day the road leading to the
spot where he lay was like a fair, from the num-
bers who repaired thither for the sake of bringing
off a part of the flesh, which, Major Denham ob-
serves, is esteemed by all, and even eaten in secret
by the first people about the sheikh. " It looks

coarse," adds the major, "but is better flavored
than any beef I found in the country." Upon this
occasion whole families put themselves in motion
to partake of the spoil.

The manner of hunting the elephant (says Majoi
Denham) is simply this : — From ten to twenty
horsemen single out one of these ponderous animals,
and, separating him from the flock by screaming
and hallooing, force him to fly with all his speed ;
after wounding him under the tail, if they can there
place a spear, the animal becomes enraged. One
horseman then rides in front, whom he pursues
with earnestness and fury, regardless of those who
press on his rear, notwithstanding the wounds they
inflict on him. He is seldom drawn from this first
object of pursuit ; and at last, wearied and trans-
fixed with spears, his blood deluging the ground,
he breathes his last under the knife of some more
venturesome hunter than the rest, who buries his
dagger in the vulnerable part near the abdomen :
for this purpose he will creep between the animal's
hinder legs, and apparently expose himself to the
greatest danger : when this cannot be accom-
plished, one or two will hamstring him while he is
baited in the front ; and this giant of quadrupeds
then becomes comparatively an easy prey to his
persecutors.

In one of his hunting expeditions while at
Kouka, Major Denham was shooting wild fowl,
when one of the sheikh's people came galloping
up with the information that three very huge ele-
phants were grazing close to the water. When
he and his party came within a few hundred yards
of them, all the persons on foot, and Major Den-
ham's servant on a mule, were ordered to halt,
while the major and three others rode up " to
these stupendous animals."

The sheikh's people began screeching violently ;
and although the beasts at first appeared to treat
the approach of the cavalcade with great con-
tempt ; yet after a little they moved off, erecting
their ears, which had till then hung flat on iheir
shoulders, giving a roar that shook the ground
under the horsemen.

One (says the major) was an immense fellow, I
should suppose sixteen feet high ; the other two
were females, and moved away rather quickly,
while the male kept in the rear, as if to guard their
retreat. We wheeled swiftly round him ; and
Maramy, (a guide sent by the sheikh,) casting a
spear at him, which struck him just under the tail,
and seemed to give him about as much pain as
when we prick our finger with a pin, the huge
beast threw up his proboscis in the air with a loud
roar, and from it cast such a volume of sand, that,
unprepared as I was for such an event, nearly
blinded me. The elephant rarely, if ever, attacks ;
and it is only when irritated that he is dangerous ;
but he will sometimes rush upon a man and horse,
after choking them with dust, and destroy them in
an instant.

Cut off from his companions, the elephant took
the direction leading to where the mule and the
footmen had been left. They quickly fled in all
directions ; and the man who rode the mule,
which was not inclined to increase its pace, was
so alarmed that he did not get the better of the

18

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

fright for the whole day. The major and his
companions pressed the elephant very close, riding
before, hehind, and on each side of him; and his
look sometimes, as he turned his head, had the
effect of checking instantly the speed of the major's
horse. His pace never exceeded a clumsy rolling
walk, but was sufficient to keep the horses at a
short gallop. Major Denham fired a ball from
each barrel of his gun at the beast, and the second,
which struck his ear, seemed to give him a mo-
ment's uneasiness only. The first, which struck
him on the body, failed in making the least im-
pression ; and, after giving him another spear,
which flew harmless off his tough hide, he was
left to pursue his way.

Eight elephants were soon afterwards reported
as being at no great distance, and coming towards
the party ; and they all mounted for the purpose
of chasing away the beasts, which appeared to be
unwilling to go, and did not even turn their backs
till the horsemen were quite close and had thrown
several spears at them. The flashes from the pan
of the gun seemed to alarm them more than any-
thing ; but they retreated very majestically, first
throwing out, like the elephant first encountered,
a quantity of sand. On their backs were a num-
ber of birds called tuda, (a species of buphaga,
probably,) described as resembling a thrush in
shape and note, and represented as being extreme-
ly useful to the elephant, in picking off the vermin
from those parts which it is not in his power to
reach.

In his excursion to Munga and the Gambarou
Major Denham and his party came, just before
sunset, upon a herd of fourteen or fifteen elephants.
These the negroes made to dance and frisk like so
many goats by beating a brass basin with a stick ;
and in the neighborhood of Bornou these animals
were so numerous as to be seen near the Tchad
in herds of from fifty to four hundred.

In temper the African elephant is considered to
be more ferocious than the Asiatic, which may be
one reason that it is not now tamed. But it is
clear that the Carthaginians availed themselves of
its services in war ; and it can hardly be doubted
that the elephants which Caesar and Pompey ex-
hibited in the amphitheatre came from Africa.

The tusks of this species are of grand dimen-
sions, and form a lucrative branch of trade. The
ivvry of them being as much prized in modern
times as it was by the ancients for furniture, orna-
mental purposes, and, above all, for the chrys-
elephantine statues, such as those of the Minerva
of the Parthenon, and of the Olympian Jupiter, in
the creation of whose forms Phidias surpassed
himself.

Regard being had to the ears, the shape of the
Afiioan species appears to have been that chosen
by Belial,

A fairer person lost not heaven,
m which to present himself to Faust :

Le gouverneur et principal maitre du Docteur
Fauste, vintvers le dit Docteur Fauste, et le voulut
risiter. Le Docteur Fauste n'eut pas un petit de

peur, pour le frayeur qu'il lui fit ; car en la saison
qui etuit de 1'ete, il vint un air si froid du diable,
que le Docteur Fauste pensa etre tout gele.

Le diable, qui s'appelloit Belial, dit au Docteur
Fauste : Depuis le Septentrion, oil vous demeurez,
j'ai vu ta pensee, et est telle, que volontiers tu
pourvois voir quelqu'un des esprits infernaux, qui
sont princes, pourtant j'ai voulu m'apparoitre a toi,
avec mes principaux conseillers et serviteurs, a ce
que vous aussi aiez ton desir accompli d'une telle
valeur. Le Docteur Fauste repond : Orsus o\i
sont ils ?

Mark the courage of Faust under the influence
of this Sarsar, this " icy wind of death." The
devil was conscious that the great magician quailed
not.

Or Belial ^toit apparu au Docteur Fauste en la
forme d'un elephant, marquete, et aiant 1'epine du
dos noire, seulement ses oreilles lui pendoient en
has, et ses yeux tous remplis de feu, avec de grandes
dents blanches comme neige, une longue trompe,
qui avoit troisaunes delongeur demesuree, et avoit
au col trois serpens volans.

Ainsi vindrent au Docteur Fauste les esprits, 1'ur.
apres 1'autre, dans sonpoisle : car ils n'eussent peu
etre tous a la fois.

Or Belial les montra au D. Fauste 1'un apres
1'autre, comment ils e"toient, et comment ils s'appel-
loient. Ilsvinrent devantlui les sept esprits princi-
paux, a sgavoir ; lepremier, Lucifer, le Maitre Gou-
verneur du Docteur Fauste, lequel se decrit ainsi.
C'etoit ungrandhomme, et etoitchevelu, et picofe",
de la couleur comme des glandes de chene rouges,
qui avoientune grande queue apres eux.

And so that damned spirit passed by.

Apres venoit Behebub, qui avoit les cheveux
peints de couleurs, velu par tout le corps ; il avoit
une tete de bceuf avec deux oreilles effroiables, aussi
tout marquete de hampes, et chevelu, avec deux
gros floquets si rudes comme les charains du foulon
qui font dans les champs, demi verd et jaune, qui
flottoient sur les floquets d'en has, qui etoient comme
d'un four tout de feu. II avoit un queue de dragon.

This apparition seems to have suggested that
which so terribly disturbed poor old Trunnion ;
but the next evil spirit is at Faust's study door : —

Astaroth; celui-ci vint en la forme d'un serpent,
et alloit sur la queue tout droit : il n'avoit point de
pieds, sa queue avoit des couleurs comme de bliques
changeantes, son ventre etoit fort gros, il avoit deux
petits pieds fort cours, tout jaunes, et le ventre un
peu blanc et jaunatre ; le col tout de chastain roux,
et une pointe un fagon de piques et traits, comme
le Herisson, qui avangoient de la longeur des doigts.

No naturalist could have given a more precise
description of this devilish Pict.

Apre*s vint Satan, tout blance et gris, et mar-
quete ; il avoit la tete d'une asne, et avoit la queue
comme d'un chat, et les comes des pieds longues
d'une aune !

And so he vanished.

Suivit aussi Anubry. II avoit la tete d'un chien
noir et blanc, et des mouchetures blanches sur le
noir, et sur le blanc des noires . seulement il avoit les
pieds et les oreilles pendantes comme un chien, qui
etoient longues de quatres aunes.

This must have been the " dog of nile, Anubis."

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

Apres tous ceux-ci venoient Dythican, qui e"toit
d'une aunede long, mais il avoit seulement le corps
d'une oiseau, qui est la perdrix : il avoit seulement
tout le col verd et mouchete ou ombrage*.

Were it not for the green neck and the bizarre
quality of the plumage, we have here the very
familiar that tripped along at the feet of Charles
V. Titian has immortalized both.*

Le derniers fut Drac, avec quatre pieds fort
courts, jaune et verd, le corps par-dessus flambant
brun, comme du feu bleu, et sa queue rougedtre.

This last grovelling spirit must have been the
red-tape devil of the party.

Ces sept avec Belial, qui sont ces conseillers
d'entretien, etoient ainsi habillez de couleurs et
facons, quiont etc recitees.

Then came a rabble of fiends, some in the shapes
of unknown creatures ; others less ambitious, taking
the forms of frogs, fallow deer, red deer, bears,
wolves, apes, hares, buffaloes, horses, goats, boar-
pigs, and the like ; but are they not pictured in
the fearful nightmare of Walpurgis night, by the
hand of Retszch, under the inspiration of Goethe?

We must lay down this fascinating old book, f
even though we shut it in the face of our reader,
albeit the indomitable Faust, no whit abashed, bids
his friend " go on ;" and stands undaunted the
infernal battle wherein all these diabolical forms
eat each other up, after changing to as many shapes
as the princess in the Arabian story, without even
leaving their tails, to say nothing of a plague of
insects which afterwards comes upon him and
drives him almost mad ; till bitten, stung, and
blistered, all over by the vilest vermin, he leaves
the enchanted atmosphere of Belial and his study
— not beaten, mind you — and, coming forth into
the blessed air of nature, finds that it is all a dia-
bolical delusion, and that hks skin is unsullied by
a single insect, parasitic or predatory.

When Faust has Mephlstopheles, thereafter,
assigned to him, what adventures ! But we must
not be tempted further, though Alexander the
Great himself is made to appear to the emperor,
Charles V., as vividly as the phantoms to the " De-
formed transformed," upon the adjuration of the
Stranger to the

Demons heroic —

Demons who wore,
The form of the Stoic

Or Sophist of yore —
Or the shape of each victor

From Macedon's boy.

But we must leave the magic land of apparitions
for the realities. of nature, and introduce such of
our readers as feel inclined to the introduction, to
the other pachydermatous form, which we hope
soon to behold alive in the flesh, the "Innog
noTauiog of the Greeks.

What an uncouth form it is, propped upon four

* In his full-length portrait of the emperor, with a tame
partridge at his feet.

tHistoire prodigieuse et lamentable de JEAN FAUST,
Grand Magician, avec son testament, et sa vie epouvant-
able. A Cologne, chez les Heritiers de Pierre Marteau.

19

short huge legs, looking like a gigantic wine-skin
fit for the revels of Polyphemus !

" The Hippopotamus" — are there not more than
one species?

That there are several fossil species* there is no
doubt ; but whether more than one species now
exists is a vexed question.

M. Desmoulins names two — Hippopotamus Ca-
pensis, and H. Senegalensis — resting his distinction,
as he says, on osteological discrepancies as strong
as those on which Cuvier depended, when he
separated the great fossil hippopotamus from the
recent species exhibited at the Cape. Nay, M.
Desmoulins goes further, not only expressing an
opinion that it is not impossible that the hippopot-
amus of the Nile differs from the two above men-
tioned, but hinting that there may be two species
in that river. The difference of color observed by
M. Caillaud, who found among forty hippopotami
living in the Upper Nile two or three of a bluish-
black hue, while the rest were reddish, seems to
be the foundation on which M. Desmoulins built
his last-named suggestion. But color is often a
treacherous guide when specific character is the
question ; and, to say nothing of differences due to
sex and age, the alteration of color in the same
individual when its skin is dry, when it is moist,
and when the river horse is taking his subaqueous
walk, has been remarked by more than one observer.
Le Vaillant, for instance, watched the progress of
one at the bottom of Great river, from the top of
an elevated rock which advanced into the stream,
and he remarked, that its color — which is grayish
when the animal is dry, and bluish when the skin
is only moist — as it walked along under the water,
appeared to be of a deep blue. After the French
traveller had satisfied his curiosity by looking over
'iis unconscious peripatetic, as a certain personage
hot to be named to ears polite is said to look over
Lincoln, he watched the moment when it came to
the surface to breathe, and killed it with a well-
directed bullet, to the great joy of his Hottentots,
who, in their surprise at the feat, and delight at
the size of the beast, called it, " The grandmother
of the river."

In its osteological organization, the hippopota-
mus approaches, in some degree, that of the ox
and the hog. The skull, especially, exhibits
much similarity in the connection of its bones, and
the figure of its sutures, to that of the Sui'dae ;
but, at the same time, it bears the impress of its
own peculiarity.

The teeth are very remarkable, and, especially
the molars, vary much in form, number and posi-
tion, according to the growth and age of the ani-
mal. The long subcylindrical incisors and ca-
nines— the latter being enormous tusks terminating
in a sharpened edge, which reminds the observer
of that of a chisel — of the lower jaw, give a ter-
rific aspect to the mouth when it is open. This
tremendous apparatus, formed principally for teas-
ing and bruising more than grinding, is a fit

* Hippopotami major, minutus, mediiis, for example.

20

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

crushing mill for the coarse, tough plants which
are transmitted to a stomach capable of contain-
ing, in a full grown hippopotamus, five or six
bushels, and a large intestine some eight inches
in diameter. Three bushels, at least, of half-
masticated vegetables have been taken from the
stomach and intestines of one half-grown. But it
is impossible to look upon these fearful teeth
without thinking of defensive and offensive wea-
pons, fit to correct, or even attack a crocodile, if
it should venture to take liberties, or approach too
near, in its plated armor. It is on record that,
when irritated or exasperated by wounds, the bite
of a hippopotamus has sunk a boat. Nor would
we rely so much upon its abstinence from animal
food, (though we do not give implicit credit to the
lamentable statement in Alexander's letter to
Aristotle, that the hippopotami, rushing from the
depths of the river, devoured the light troops
which he had sent to swim across,) to feel quite
certain that if such luckless wanderers were to
come in its way when it was hungry it would not
give a zest to its salads with a tender young croc-
odile or two. Major Denham states that the flesh
of the crocodile is extremely fine, that it has firm
green fat resembling the turtle, and that the cal-
lipee has the color, firmness and flavor, of the
finest veal. Mr. Bullock gave me the same ac-
count of the flesh of the alligator, as far as the
similitude to veal goes. I presume both travel-
lers were speaking of young lacertians ; for the
patriarchs give out a very strong musky smell.

The formidable teeth of the hippopotamus are
masked when the animal is not excited, by im-
mense lips, and the body is wrapped in a coating
of fat, which, in its turn, is shielded by a thick,
smooth, tough hide — of which more anon.

The longest of the two hippopotami measured
by Zerenghi, was sixteen feet nine inches in
length ; its girth was fifteen feet ; its height six
feet and a half; the aperture of the mouth two
feet four in width ; and the tusks above a foot
long, clear of the sockets.

About the same period is required to complete
the gestation of the hippopotamus as that neces-
sary for the production of man — at least, so it is
said, and probably with truth. The female
calves on land ; and both mother and offspring
take to the water on the slightest alarm. This
renders the capture of the young exceedingly dif-
ficult. An eye-witness assured Thunberg that he
watched a female hippopotamus which had gone
op from a neighboring river, and lay motionless
with his company till the calf was brought forth,
when one of the party shot the poor mother dead.
Up sprang the Hottentots from their hidden lair,
and rushed forward to secure the new-born crea-
ture ; but its instinct did more for it than their
reason for them — it gained the bank, threw itself
into the bosom of the friendly river, and escaped.

Another calf, surprised by Sparrman's party,
was not so fortunate. On the 28th January,
1766, after sunrise, just as he and his Hottentots
were thinking of leaving their posts for their wag-

ons, a female hippopotamus, with her calf, came
from some other pit or river, to take up their
quarters in that which Sparrman was then block-
ading. While she was waiting at a rather steep
part of the river 's bank, and looking after her
calf, which was lame, and consequently came on
but slowly, she received an ill-directed shot from
a Hottentot rejoicing in the name of " Flip" —
whom Sparrman, in his wrath, designates as the
drowsiest of all sublunary beings, declaring he
was half asleep when he fired — and immediately
plunged into the river. One of the Hottentots
then seized the calf, and held it by its hind legs
till the rest of the party came to his aid ; when
it was fast^ bound and borne in triumph to the
wagons, making a noise much like a hog that is
going to be killed, but more shrill and harsh. It
struggled hard, and was very unmanageable ; and,
though the Hottentots were of opinion that it was
not more than a fortnight, or at most three weeks,
old, it was three feet and a half in length, and
two feet high. When it was let loose it ceased
crying ; and after the Hottentots had passed their
hands several times over its nose, in order to ac-
custom it to their effluvia, it directly began to take
to them ; and in its hunger, poor thing, devoured
the droppings of the oxen. While it was alive,
Sparrman made a drawing of it, from which the
plate in The Swedish Transactions for 1778, and
that in his own Voyage, was taken, and then the
hapless orphan was killed, dissected and eaten, in
less than three hours. Sparrman found four
stomachs, the first nearly empty, containing only
a few lumps of cheese or curd ; in the second
were several clots of caseous matter, and a great
quantity of sand and mud ; the third contained
lumps of caseous matter of a yellow color, and
harder consistence than the others, together with
several leaves, quite whole and fresh, and some
dirt ; in the fourth was a good deal of dirt with a
small quantity of curds, which were whiter than
those in any of the other stomachs. The intes-
tinal canal was 109 feet long.

This, be it remembered, was a baby. What a
supply must be requisite for the full-grown ani-
mal !

Bitterly does the husbandman, whose cultivated
fields lie in the neighborhood of a hippopotamus-
haunted river, rue its voracity, and describe it,
unconsciously, in terms long ago recorded by Ni-
cander* and Diodorus,f expressive of the ruin oc-
casioned to his crops by these enormous reapers.
They were regarded as the symbol of the destruc-
tion-dealing Typhon, and were worshipped, as
some nations worship the devil, from the terror
which they inspired. In modern times, every
settler and every native makes war upon them.

*"H innov rov Ntfion vnio Sa'ir aiSaioiaaav
Boaxti, aqovQTiaiv di xaxip im^iMirat aoiijr.

Theriac.

t Diodorus says, that if the fecundity of the beast were
greater, it would be ruinous to the agriculture of Egypt ;
and Sonnini states, in the same spirit, that these animals
devastated whole tracts of country, and were as formida-
ble enemies to man as the crocodile.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A. NATURALIST.

21

Pit-falls, ambushes, the rifle, are ready for them
wherever they make their appearance ; to say
nothing of the old and somewhat apocryphal story
of laying lots of dried peas in their way — rather
\n expensive proceeding, one should think — which
these gluttonous giants devour, and then drinking
copiously, the peas swell within them till 'they
burst. The beast had his revenge, sometimes ;
and Sparrman, for one, was in such a parlous
fear, when one came out of the stream upon his
party, with a hideous cry, and " as swift as an
arrow from a bow," that he thought the river had
overflowed its banks, and that he should be
drowned. After this confession, he thus endeav-
ors to account for the strange impression : — " As
the hippopotamus," says he, " when it is newly
come up out of the water, and »is wet and slimy,
is said to glisten in the moonshine like a fish, it
is no wonder that as soon as I took my handker-
chief from before my eyes, it should appear to
me, at so near a view as I had of it, like a column
of water, which seemed to threaten to carry us
off" and drown us in a moment."

The voice of the animal is described as some-
thing between grunting and neighing : the words
heurh, hurh, heoh-hcoh, are used by Sparrman to
give some idea of its cry ; the two first words
being uttered in a hoarse, hut sharp and tremulous
sound, resembling the grunting of other animals,
while the third or compound word is sounded ex-
tremely quick, and is not unlike the neighing of a
horse. Others describe the sound as more resem-
bling the bellowing of a buffalo than the neighing
of a horse — at least, just before death. Some call
it snorting, some neighing, and others again
grunting ; and it has been likened to the deep
creaking of a very heavy gate or door on its
hinges.

Neither of these similes convey the idea of any-
thing very melodious, but there can be no doubt
that this clumsy creature has some music in his
soul.

Major Denham relates, that during the excursion
to Munga and the Gambarou, the party encamped
on the borders of a lake frequented by hippopota-
mi, and intended to shoot some of the huge in-
mates. A violent thunder-storm prevented their
sport ; but next morning they had a full opportu-
nity of convincing themselves that these uncouth
animals are not only not insensible to musical
sounds, but strongly attracted to them, as seals
are said to be, even though the music should not
possess the softness and sweetness of the Lydian
measure. As the major and his suite passed along
the borders of the Lake Muggaby at sunrise, the
hippopotami followed the drums of the different
chiefs the whole length of the water, sometimes
approaching so close to the shore that the water
they spouted from their mouths reached the persons
who were passing along the banks. Major Den-
ham counted fifteen at one time sporting on the
surface ; and his servant Columbus shot one of
them in the head, when he gave so loud a roar as

he buried himself in the lake that all the others
disappeared in an instant.

But whatever may be thought of the snortings
and neighings of this See-pferd, all agree that it
deserves the more appetizing name of Wasser ochs,
when the sapid excellence of its flesh is consid-
ered. The Sea-cow's speck, in other words, the
layer of fat which lies immediately below the
skin, salted and dried, is highly prized by the
Cape Town epicure. Of the teeth, Odoardus
Barbosa justly saith, " Hanno gli ippopotami i
denti, come gli elefante piccoli et e migliore
avorio di quello de gli elefanti, e piti bianco, e
piCk forte, e di maniera che non perde il colore."
For this last reason the ivory of the canine teeth
is highly valued by the manufacturers of those
pearly rows which the artist knows so well how
to form when he makes the beautiful dental series
of rosy eighteen appear between the withered lips
of eighty. Nor were the ancients ignorant of its
value in a somewhat higher branch of art. Pau-
sanius relates that the face of Cybele was formed
of the teeth of these animals.

The tough skin in ancient times was fashioned
into helmets and bucklers. " The skin or hide of
his backe is unpenetrable, (whereof are made tar-
guets and head-pieces of doubty proof that no
weapon wil pierce,) unlesse it be soked in water
or some liquor," saith the worthy Philemon Hol-
land, in his translation of Pliny. It is, in these
modern days, made into whips, and with these
instruments terrible punishments, not unfrequently
fatal, like the Russian knout, are inflicted.

Major Denham makes one shudder when he
describes the execution o'f one of those wickedly
hypocritical judgments, which, affecting to- avoid
a sentence of death, inflicts it in one of its- most
agonizing forms.

Oppressively hot as the weather was, the sheikh,,
he states, admitted of no excuse for breaking the
Rhamadan, and any man who was caught suffering
his thirst to get the better of him in an African
June, or visiting his wives between sunrise and
sunset, was sentenced to 400 stripes with one of
these deadly whips.

A wretched woman bore two hundred stripes —
the number to which she was sentenced — within
the courtyard of the palace, and was afterwards
carried home senseless.

Her paramour received his punishment in the
dender or square, suspended by a cloth round his
middle — his only covering — and supported by
eight men. An immense whip of one thick thong
cut from the skin of the hippopotamus was first
shown to him, which he was obliged to kiss and
acknowledge the justice of his sentence. Tho
fatah was then said aloud, and two powerful slaves
of the sheikh inflicted four hundred stripes, reliev-
ing each other every thirty or forty strokes.
" They strike," says the major, " on the back,
while the end of the whip, which has a knob or
head, winds round and falls on the breast or upper
stomach : this it is that renders these punishments

22

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

fatal. After the first two hundred " here

the dreadful details become too horrible. " * * *
In a few hours after he had taken the whole four
hundred he was a corpse. The agas, kashellas,
and kadis attend on these occasions. I was as-
sured the man did not breathe a sigh, audibly.
Another punishment succeeded this, which, as it
was for a minor offence — namely, stealing ten
camels and selling them — was trifling, as they only
gave him one hundred stripes, and with a far less
terrific weapon."

In ancient history the hippopotamus figures
under many shapes ; some giving it the mane of
a horse and the hoofs of an ox, and others the tail
of the last-named animal. Whether it be the
behemoth of Job* is doubtful, many asserting that
it is, and as many thinking that it is not : among
the last Milton must be reckoned —

Scarce from his mould,
Behemoth biggest born of earth upheaved
His vastness : fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants : ambiguous between sea and land
The river horse and scaly crocodile. f

It is remarkable that the accounts of the an-
cients, from Herodotus and Aristotle down to Pliny
and subsequent writers, should be so extremely
inaccurate, while the representations which have
come down to us are comparatively correct.
'Take, for example, the coin of Hadrian, with a
crocodile at the side of Nilus and a hippopotamus
looking up at the river god; the coin of Marcia
•Olacilla Severa ; and the sculpture on the plinth
• of the statue of the Nile, with a crocodile orscink
— probably the former— j-in its mouth.

Besides, one should think that some had seen
•the animal itself. " Marcus Scaurus was the first
•man, who in his plaies and games that he set out
in his aedileship, made a show of one water-Horse
-and foure Crocodiles swimming in a poole or mote
made for the time during those solemnities."!
'One, also, swelled the triumphal pomp of Augus-
tus after his victory over Cleopatra. The later
•emperors exhibited them frequently, and there is
every reason for concluding that they were shown,
no longer as mere objects of curiosity, but matched
with men. The bestiarus must have thought he
had an ugly customer when the lanista first intro-
duced a hippopotamus to him as the antagonist
against which he was pitted. The third Gordian
gratified the people with the display of thirty-two
< elephants, ten elks, ten tigers, sixty tame lions,

* Chap. xl. 10-19.
t Holland's Pliny.

Paradise Lost, vii. 470.

thirty tame leopards, ten hyaenas, a thousand
pair of gladiators, one hippopotamus, one rhinoc-
eros, and ten camelopards. These gigantic
" games," as they were called, had almost always
a bloody termination ; and the author of The Last
Days of Pompeii caught the spirit of the savage
populace when he made one of them shout in joy-
ous anticipation —

Ho ! ho ! for the merry, merry show,
With a forest of faces in every row ;
Lo ! the swordsmen, bold as the son of Alemsena,
Sweep side by side o'er the hushed arena.
Tal k while you may, you will hold your breath
When they meet in the grasp of the" glowing death !
Tramp ! tramp ! how gayly they go !
. Ho ! ho ! for the merry, merry show !

The ancients believed that great enmity existed
between the hippopotamus and the crocodile ; and
that they bear no very good will to each other
may be very possible ; but near neighbors as they
are, dangerous enough perhaps, Nature has so
provided for them, offensively and defensively, that
they, most probably, maintain an armed neutrality.

The hippopotamus did not escape the medical
practitioners of old. Pliny and others show how
it enriched the pharmacopoeia. We spare our
readers the various prescriptions, merely observing
that the teeth were famous against the tooth-ache,
and that the mother who could procure some of the
brain had only to rub the gums of her infant with
it to deliver the poor dear baby from the torments
of teething. We must not omit that the animal
was considered a master of the art of healing, from
his alleged habit of Jetting blood by pressing the
vein of his leg against a sharp stake, or stout,
broken, sharp-pointed reed, when his constitution
required it.

If we are so fortunate as to overcome the dif-
ficulties of rearing and of the passage, and lodge
the young hippopotamus, now sojourning in Egypt,
safely in the Regent's Park, how different will the
spirit of the English people, who will crowd to
see it, be from that with which the sanguinary
Romans, high and low, beheld the same form !
We shall have the privilege of peaceably enjoying
the sight of this peaceable animal, anxious, in its
uncouth way, to show its good will to those who
show good will to it, instead of lusting for the ter-
rible excitement of the amphitheatre.

Commodus, on one occasion, exhibited five ;
and descending into the arena butchered some of
these wretched beasts with his own imperial hand.
Queen Victoria, accompanied by her consort and
their children, the hopes of Britain, will gracious-
ly look upon the unmolested creature.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

23

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATU-
RALIST.

PART V.

JOHN JONSTON, quoting Robertas de Monte,
remarks, that " in the yeer 1125 the winter was
so violent, that innumerable eels in Brabant, by
reason of the ice, went forth of the lake, which
is strange, and got into hay-ricks, and lay hid
there, till by extream cold they rotted away. And
the trees at last had scarce any leaves put forth in
May." The eels might as well have staid .pa-
tiently in their lake waiting for better times, as
we must for milder weather. Whether the May
of 1850 is to be like the May in 1125 is a prob-
lem yet to be solved ; but I write on the 28th
March, after a bitter easterly-wind-blowing month
of it, with the snow on the ground, the sun shin-
ing, and the searching, biting, blasting wind in the
old quarter. There was thick ice yesterday on
the water in St. John's Park. The dryness, for
weeks, has almost equalled that which afflicted
Italy in the 322d year after the building of Rome,
and we have had dust more than enough to ran-
som a heptarchy of kings. So pressed for food
were the blackbirds, in consequence of the drought,
that they ate off the grass of the pinks and carna-
tions, making them look as if that plant-cutting
bird, the Phytotoma,* or the rodent rabbit, had
been at them. The crocuses look pinched with
cold, and keep their petals closed, though the
sun's rays court them, as if in mockery, to ex-
pand. But if Phoebus bears the nuptial torch of
the diurnal flowers, without the aid of Zephyrus,
the loves of the plants are checked. The buds
bide their time snugly wrapped up in their var-
nished coats ; but still nature gives signs of vege-
table life. The " daffodils begin to peer" —
daffodils

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ;

and the primrose and violet brave the severity of
the season from their lowly but sheltered retreats.
After all, the time has been genial when compared
with the springs of 1771 and 1838, though the
impatience with which many of us regard that
fixture the weathercock, day after day, can hardly
be wondered at. But could we order things for
the better in the long run ?

A distinguished philosopher and poet,f indeed,
remarks, that the suddenness of the change of the
wind from north-east to south-west seems to show
that it depends on some minute chemical cause,

* Phytotoma rara, the Chilian Plant-cutter. It lives
on plants, which it cuts off close to the root, and often
shears off many more than it wants, leaving them on the
ground, as if it did the mischief from caprice'. The
peasants consequently employ every method in their
power for its destruction, and rewards are given to chil-
dren who take their eggs. Molina describes the bird as
about the size of a quail, with a rather large bill, half an
inch in length, conical, straight, a little pointed, and
serrated.

t Darwin. ,JL \£3

which if it was discovered might probably, like
other chemical causes, be governed by human
agency, such as blowing up rocks by gunpowder,
or extracting the lightning from the clouds. If,
adds the gifted writer, this could be accomplished,
it would be the most happy discovery that ever
has happened to these northern latitudes, since in
this country the north-east winds bring frost, and
the south-west winds are attended with warmth
and moisture ; and he argues, that if the inferior
currents of air could be kept perpetually from the
south-west supplied by new productions of air at
the line, which he makes the qfficina a'eris for this
supply, or by superior currents flowing in a con-
trary direction, the vegetation in this country
would be doubled, as in the moist African valleys
which know no frosts ; the numbers of its inhabit-
ants would be increased, and their lives prolonged ;
for a great abundance of the aged and infirm of
mankind, as well as many birds and animals, are
destroyed by severe continued frosts in this climate.

And thus man proposes. See what he would
do if he had the direction of the clerk of the
weather-office ! Our poetic philosopher, however,
omits to tell us how he would dispose of the
superfluous population of long-livers in this Eden,
or how the tropical temperature would suit
hyperborean constitutions. In such a paradise,
threescore would be no burden, and all the gay
grandsires would frisk as in the celebrated Her*
fordshire May dance, in which figured eight chosen
men " whose ages counted together made eight
hundred yeers compleat, so that what one wanted
of a hundred, the other exceeded a hundred as
much." Our noble 106*168 would emulate " the
Countesse of Desmond, who lived in the yeer
1589, and after ; she married in the dayes of
Edward the fourth ; Verulam saith, she thrioe
renewed her teeth, and lived a hundred and fourty
yeers."*

All this looks charming upon paper, but, de-
pend upon it, the winds are best in the hand of
the Great Anemonologist and disposer of events,

* Jonston, 1657: who adds, "Epimenides of Crete
lived 150 yeers ; Gorgi as Siculus, a rhetorician, 108;
Hippocrates 114 : Terentia, wife of Cicero, 103 ; Clodia,
daughter of Ofilius, 115, though when she was young she
had borne fifteen children. What shall I say of Luceia
or Galeria Copiola ? She lived not a little more than a
hundred yeers ; for it is reported that for a hundred yeers
she played the jester upon the stage : it may be, at first
she acted the maid's part, and at last an old wive's.
Isra, the player and dancer, was in her youthfull dayes
brought upon the stage : how old she was then is not
known, but after 99 yeers from that time she was again
brought upon the Theater, not to act her part, but to be
showed as a miracle ; when Pompey the Great dedicated
the Theater. Also she was again showed at the sports
ordained for to pray for the health of Diyus Augustus.
Verstigan writes, that at Segovia, in Spain, it was re-
ported that a woman lived a hundred and sixty yeers.
Franciscus Alvarez reports, that he saw an Archbishop
of ^Ethiopia a hundred and fifty yeers old. Buchanan
testifies that one Lauren tins, of the Orcades, when he
was a hundred and fourty yeers old, went a fishing in his
boat on the coldest winter commonly." All, these, how-
ever, with our own old Parr to boot, must hide their
diminished youthful heads before John Jonston's other
example, which we have reserved for the last. "John
of Times, that was armor-bearer to Charles the Great,
lived 360 yeers I"

24

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

who in his own good time will send the desired
change.

Still, shivering mortals may be pardoned for
looking with intense anxiety for the winged herald
of summer, whose advent ever has been and ever
will be hailed by man. A Greek design is now
before me, representing three persons of different
ages. The one on the left, a young man in the
flower of youth, exclaims, as he points to the bird
flying above him, "Behold a swallow!" The
centre figure, a man of more advanced but still
vigorous age, seated, like the former, has just
turned his up-lifted head, saying — " True, by Her-
cules!" and at the same moment a boy, standing
and pointing to the welcome apparition, cries,
" There she is." All this the eldest personage
ratifies with " The spring is come!" Nearly
the same exclamations flow through a line of
Aristophanes.*

Speaking of the American barn swallow,f
Wilson says, " We welcome their first appear-
ance with delight, as the faithful harbingers and
companions of flowery spring and ruddy summer ;
and when, after a long, frost-bound, and boisterous
winter, we hear it announced that ' the swallows
are come,' what a train of charming ideas are
associated with the simple tidings." The human
heart was equally touched, whether it was beat-
ing in the bosom of an ancient Greek or of a
modern American.

The length of the American bird is seven
inches, and its alar extent thirteen. The bill is
black ; the upper part of the head, neck, back,
rump, and tail coverts steel blue, the color de-
scending roundly on the breast. The forehead
and chin are deep chestnut, and the lining of the
wing, belly, and vent, light chestnut. The wings
and tail are of a brown or sooty black, glossed
with reflections of green. Tail deeply forked,
the two external feathers being an inch and a half
longer than those next to them, and tapering
towards their ends ; each feather, with the excep-
tion of the two middle ones, is marked on the
inner vane with an oblong white spot. The eyes
are dark hazel, the sides of the mouth of a yellow
hue, and the legs dark purple. Such is the
plumage of the male.

The female differs from her mate in having the
under parts of a rufous white slightly clouded with
a rufous hue, and her external tail feathers are
shorter than those of the male.

They are nearly a week in finishing their nest,
which they commence early in May. Wilson
describes it as being in the form of an inverted
cone, with a perpendicular section cut off on that
side by which it adheres to the wood. At the
top it has an extension of the edge, a sort of
offset, for the male or female to sit on occasion-
ally ; the upper diameter is about six inches by
five, the height externally seven inches. Mud
mixed with fine hay, as plasterers mix their mor-

iStf, x.r.H. — Equites.
T Hirundo rufa, Gm. ; Hirundo Americana, Wilson.

ar with hair to make it adhere the better, and
wearing the appearance of having been placed in
regular strata or layers from side to side, forms
he shell, which is about an inch in thickness.
The interior of the cone is filled with fine hay
well stuffed in, and above the hay lies a handful
of very large downy goose feathers. On this soft
receptacle repose five eggs, white, specked, and
spotted all over with reddish brown. A slight
flesh-colored tinge is due to the semi-transparency
of the egg shell.

On the 16th of May, being on a shooting expe-
dition on the top of Pocano Mountain, North-
ampton, when the ice on that and on several suc-
cessive mornings was more than a quarter of an
inch thick, Wilson observed with surprise a pair
of these swallows which had taken up their abode
on a miserable cabin there. It was then about
sunrise, the ground white with hoar-frost, and the
male was twittering on the roof by the side of his
mate with great sprightliness.* The man of the
house told him that a single pair came regularly
there every season, and built their nest on a pro-
jecting beam under the eaves, about six or seven
feet from the ground. At the bottom of the
mountain, in a large barn belonging to the tavern
there, Wilson counted twenty nests, all seemingly
occupied. In the woods, he says, they are never
met with ; but as you approach a farm they soon
catch the eye, cutting their gambols in the air.
Scarcely a barn to which these birds can find ac-
cess is without them ; and as public feeling is
universally in their favor, they are seldom or
never disturbed. The proprietor of the large barn
above-mentioned, a German, assured Wilson, that if
a man permitted the swallows to be shot, his cows
would give bloody milk, and also that no barn where
swallows frequented would ever be struck with
lightning ; " I nodded assent," adds this charming
and amiable writer ; " when the tenets of super-
stition lean to the side of humanity, one can read-
ily respect them."

Our transatlantic brethren have also their
" chimney swallow, "f described with his usual
felicity by Wilson, who remarks that the noise
which the old ones make in passing up and down
the funnel has some resemblance to distant thun-
der. When heavy and long-continued rains pre-
vail, the nest loses its hold ; if this disaster oc-
curs during the period of incubation, the eggs are
of course destroyed when the loosened nest is
precipitated to the bottom." But kind nature has
provided for the safety of the brood if the misfor-
tune happen before they can well fly ; for the
muscular power of the feet and the sharpness of
the claws of the nestlings, even when they are

* Our swallow is equally matutinal ; and our own Gray
has truly and pathetically associated it with the other
early rural sounds : —

The breezy call of incense-breathing mom,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

t Hirundo pelasgia, Linn.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

25

blind — and a considerable time elapses before they
can see — are remarkable, and the houseless young
frequently scramble up the sides of the vent, to
which they cling like squirrels, and are often fed
by the parents for a week or more while so sit-
uated.

Mr. Churchman, a correspondent of Wilson,
counted more than two hundred go in of an even-
ing into one chimney of a mansion. Once he
saw a cat come upon the house, and place herself
near the chimney, where she strove to catch the
birds as they entered, but without success. Puss
then climbed the chimney-top, and there took her
station. The birds, nothing daunted, descended
in gyrations without seeming to regard her,
though she made frequent attempts to grab them.
"I was pleased," adds good Mr. Churchman,
" to see that they all escaped her fangs." Wil-
son, who was a close observer, says that he never
knew these birds to resort to kitchen chimneys
where fire was kept in summer. He thought he
had noticed them enter such chimneys for the
purpose of exploring, but he observed also that
they immediately ascended, and went off, on find-
ing fire and smoke.

Then there is " the purple martin,"* — a gen-
eral favorite with the Anglo-Americans, and even
with the Indians. Boxes are placed for the wel-
come birds in the homesteads, and in these com-
fortable lodgings four spotless white eggs, very
small for the size of the bird, are deposited.

He well repays the hospitality.

The purple martin,, (says the author last quoted,)
like his half-cousin the king-bird, is the terror of
crows, hawks, and eagles ; these he attacks when-
ever they make their appearance, and with such
vigor and rapidity that they instantly have recourse
to flight. So well known is this to the lesser birds
and to the domestic poultry, that as soon as they
hear the martin's voice engaged in fight, all is
alarm and consternation. To observe with what
spirit and audacity this bird dives and sweeps upon
and around the hawk or eagle is astonishing ; he
also bestows an occasional bastinading on the king-
bird when he finds him too near his premises,
though he will at any time instantly cooperate with
him in attacking the common enemy.

Byron, who then rarely, if ever, tasted meat,
sitting one day opposite to Moore, who was dis-
cussing a beef-steak with hearty good will, inquired
whether the diet did not make him savage? The
stimulating food of the pugnacious purple martin
differs from all the rest of the American swallows ;
wasps and beetles, particularly those called by the
boys, " Goldsmiths," are his favorite prey. Wil-
son took four of these large beetles from the
stomach of one of these birds.

But we must leave the other American Hirun-
dinidee, though the temptation be strong ; for it is
impossible not to be struck with the migration
which is at this moment in progress all over the
world. For example, we have it on undoubted
authority that from the twenty-first day of March

* Hirundo purpurea, Linn. ; Progne purpurea, Bole.

to the first day of May, at least one hundred mil-
lions of birds enter Pennsylvania from the south
— part on their way further north, and part to
reside during the season. Wilson ascertained
during his residence with Mr. Bartram, in the
summer of 1811, that in the Botanic Garden and
the adjoining buildings, comprehending an extent
of little more than eight acres, not less than fifty-
one pairs of birds took up their abode and built
their nests.

Return we then to our own happy land, and
our own swallows.

^Elian and Plutarch declare that the fly and
the swallow are the only animals which cannot be
tamed. Pliny gives it another " indocible" com
panion, in his forty-fifth chapter setting forth
" what birds are not apt to loarnc, and will not ba
taught."

And now, (says the Roman zoologist, speaking
through the mouth of the venerable Philemon Hol-
land)— and now that we are in this discourse of wit
and capacitie, I must not omit to note that of birds
the swallow, and of land beasts the mouse and the
rat, are very untoward, and cannot be brought to
learn ; whereas we see great elephants ready to do
whatever they are commanded ; the furious lions
brought to draw under the yoke ; the seals within
the sea, and so many fishes grow to be tame and
gentle.

Whether, as time has rolled on, swallows have
become more civilized and docile, or man has
arrived at greater excellence in the art of domes-
ticating and taming animals, are questions which
are not for discussion here ; but certain it is that
swallows become very familiar in confinement,
and to the observations made in this state we owe
the knowledge that their moult takes place in
January and February, for they have been so
kept for many months.

In September, 1800, the Rev. Walter Trevel-
yan wrote from Long Witton, Northumberland,
in a letter to the editor of Bewick's British Birds,
the following narrative, which is so simply and
beautifully written, and gives so clear an account
of the process of taming, that it would be unjust
to recite it in any words but his own for the edifi-
cation of those who may wish to make the experi-
ment : —

About nine weeks ago, (writes the good clergy-
man,) a swallow fell down one of our chimneys,
nearly fledged, and was able to fly in two or three
days. The children desired they might try to rear
him, to which I agreed, fearing the old ones would
desert him ; and, as he was not the least shy, they
succeeded without any difficulty, for he opened his
mouth for flies as fast as they could supply them,
and was regularly fed to a whistle. In a few days,
perhaps a week, they used to take him into the
fields with them, and as each child found a fly and
whistled, the little bird flew for his prey from one
to another ; at other times he would fly round about
them in the air, but always descended at the first
call, in spite of the constant endeavors of the wild
swallows to seduce him away : for which purpose
several of them at once would fly about him in all
directions, striving to drive him away when they

26

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

saw him about to settle on one of the children's
hands, extended with the food. He would very
often alight on the children, uncalled, when they
were walking several fields distant from home.

What a charming sketch of innocence and be-
nevolence, heightened by the anxiety of the pet's
relations to win him away from beings whom they
must have looked upon as so many young ogres !
The poor flies, it is true, darken the picture a
little ; but to proceed with the narrative : —

Our little inmate was never made a prisoner by
being put into a cage, but always ranged about the
room at large wherever the children were, and
they never went out of doors without taking him
with them. Sometimes he would sit on their
hands or heads and catch flies for himself, which he
soon did with great dexterity. At length, finding
it take up too much of their time to supply him
with food enough to satisfy his appetite, (for I
have no doubt he ate from seven hundred to a
thousand flies a-day,) they used to turn him out of
me house, shutting the window to prevent his re-
turn for two or three hours together, in hopes he
would learn to cater for himself, which he soon
did ; but still was no less tame, always answering
their call, and coming in at the window to them
(of his own accord) frequently every day, and al-
ways roosting in their room, which he has regular-
ly done from the first till within a week or ten days
past. -He constantly roosted on one of the chil-
dren's heads till their bed-time ; nor was he
disturbed by the child moving about, or even
walking, but would remain perfectly quiet with
his head under his wing, till he was put away for
the night in some warm corner, for he liked much
warmth.

The kind and considerate attempt to alienate
the attached bird from its little friends had its
effect.

It is now four days (writes worthy Mr. Tre-
velyan, in conclusion) since he came in to roost in
the house, and though he did not then show any
symptoms of shyness, yet he is evidently becoming
less tame, as the whistle will not now bring him to
the hand ; nor does he visit us as formerly, but he
always acknowledges it when within hearing by a
chirp, and by flying near. Nothing could exceed
his lameness for about six weeks ; and I have no
doubt it would have continued the same had we not
left him to himself as much as we could, fearing he
would be so perfectly domesticated that he would
be left behind at the time of migration, and of
course be starved in the winter from cold and hun-
ger.

And so ends this agreeable story : not, how-
ever, that it was " of course" that the confiding
bird would be starved if it remained ; for the Rev.
W. F. Cornish, of Totness, kept two tame swal-
lows, one for a year and a half, and the other for
two years, as he informed Mr. Yarrell.

Wilson has proved that the American barn-
swallow may be easily tamed, and he observes
that they, too, soon become exceedingly gentle and
familiar. He frequently kept them in his room
for several days at a time, when they employed
themselves in catching flies, picking them from his
clothes and hair, and calling out occasionally as

they observed some of their old companions pass-
ing the windows.

But, after all, it is very questionable kindness
to make a pet of a creature so essentially volatile.
Look at the bird. Observe its tiny legs and feet.
See how the whole structure is fitted for an aerial
existence. Look at the prodigal development of
wing, and the powerful muscles destined to work
the alar machinery, enabling the bird to sustain
itself for hours in the air, and there execute such
rapid and changing turns and evolutions as the
desultory movements of its insect prey require, and
with a celerity that the eye can hardly follow.
Virgil found no better simile for the velocity and
dexterity exhibited by Juturna, when driving her
brother's chariot to save him from falling into the
hands of ^Eneas ; nor Ariosto for the rapidity of
the ship wherein Orlando Furioso desired to
cleave the waters.

The multitudes of insects destroyed by a pair
of swallows in the breeding season may be im-
agined from the number of flies that went to make
up the daily rations of Mr. Trevelyan's tame bird.
Theocritus, through whose verse Nature breathes,
had evidently observed the multitudinous visits
and departures from the nest for the purpose of
feeding the young, and alludes to them with his
wonted felicity in his fourteenth idyl. Poetical
fable, too, was busy with the bird, and the lament-
able story of the daughters of Pandion was cele-
brated, both in prose and poetry.

Pendebant peniiis, quarum petit altera silvas
Allera tecta subit.*

The concluding frightful scene, which reminds
one of the horrible revenge of Titus Andronicus,
with the additional coup de theatre of Philomela
throwing the head of Itylus on the table at the
conclusion of the revolting repast, and the subse-
quent change of Tereus into a hoopoe, Itylus into
a pheasant, Philomela into a nightingale, and her
sister into a swallow —

Manibus Procne pectus signata cruentis,t
is perhaps as striking a chapter of metamor-
phoses as Greek or Roman ever invented. Mos-
chus makes the two plaintive sisters prominent in
their lamentations, when

All the birds in the air fell to sighing and sobbing,

on the death of Bion.J Nor are some of the
stories told of the bird, evidently in good faith,
unamusing : —

In the mouth of Nilus, near Heraclea, in ^Egypt,
there is a mighty banke or causey raised only of a
continuall ranke and course of swallows' nests,
piled one upon and by another thicke, for the
length almost of half a quarter of a mile, which is
so firme and strong, that being opposed against the
inundations of Nilus, it is able to breake the force

* Ovid, Metam. 6

t Gecrrg. iv. Ovid also takes advantage of the plu-
mage to help the fable :—

Nee ad hue de pectore caedis
Excessere not<e, signataque sanguine pluma est.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

of that river when it swelleth, and is it selfe inex-
pugnable : a piece of work that no man is able to
turne his hand unto. In the same .^Egypt, neere
unto the towne Coptos, there is an island conse-
crated unto the goddesse Isis, which every yere
these swallows do rampier and fortifie, for feare
lest the same Nil us should eat the banks thereof,
and break over into it. In the beginning of the
spring, for three nights together, they bring to the
cape of that Island straw, chafFe, and such-like
stuffe, to strengthen the front thereof: and for the
time, they ply their businesse so hard, that for cer-
taine it is knowne, many of them have died with
taking such paines and moiling about this worke.
And verily every yeare they go as daily to this
taske againe, as the spring is sure to come about ;
and they faile not, no more than souldiers that by
virtue of their militarie oath and obligation go forth
to service and warfare.*

Talk of the dykes of Holland after this !

Such services to the Egyptians, and to Isis in
particular, deserved a reward, and accordingly
Pliny and ^Elian will tell you that if their eyes
are taken out, new ones will come, and the bird
see as well as ever. This power of reproduction
undoubtedly exists in some of the reptiles, the
newt for instance ; but not in the higher warm-
blooded animals. Aristotle, however, declares,
that if the eyes of the swallow's nestlings are
pricked they will heal, and leave the young birds
with the power of vision. This is far from im-
possible, especially when the creature is very
young, for the humor may be restored under the
healed cornea — but pray, gentle reader, do not try
the experiment — and is probably the only author-
ity on which Pliny and ^Elian founded their radi-
cal assertion ; but a story always gains something
as it goes. " It is commonly said, that if a man
pluck the eies out of yong serpents -or yong swal-
lows, they wil have new again in their place, "f

Then, again, when the Uatta, which seem to
have been as pernicious to the eggs and nestlings
of the swallow as they were to the bees,| persecuted
a swallow's nest, the parents, in the good old times,
dashed down to the first parsley bed they could find,
plucked some of the leaves, and dropped them into
their domicile, when away scuttled the intrusive
insects, and not a Uatta dared again to show his
antennae there as long as the crisp vegetable kept
guard.

Now, really !

Inquire of ^Elian ; put him on your desk for
cross-examination, and see if you can shake his
evidence.

But if the foregoing story of the parsley startles
you — and how do you know that parsley will not
drive away Uatla ? — pray listen to the numerous
ills which could be cured by means of these hygeian
creatures. Take the ashes of the young— but of
the bank martin remember — and you have " a
singular and soveraigne remedy for the deadly
squinancy."§ Eat them whole, and defy quartan

* Holland's Pliny.

t Holland's Pliny. Pliny's words are, " Serpentium
catuiis, et hirundinum pullis, si quis eruat, renasci
tradunt."

t Georg. iv. § Holland's Pliny.

agues ; or, if you find it unpleasant to go the whole
bird, masticate their hearts with honey, or take
one drachm of their droppings in goats' or sheep's
milk before the quartan access. If your memory
should become a little the worse for wear, their
hearts, well mingled with cinnamon and ammomum,
will soon brighten you up again. You will find
water of swallows taken fasting, especially if it be
followed by a persevering diet on their flesh, with
their ashes mingled in the drink of the patient,
as infallible a remedy for epilepsy as any of the
nostrums of the present day. Weakness of sight,
ophthalmia, inflamed tonsils, are a few only of the
maladies which vanish before preparations of the
bird. The nests were held excellent good for
angina, and their blood for the gout. Then there
are certain small stones — you will see them,
curious reader, figured in the Metallotheca Vaticana
Michaelis Mercati* — found in the nestlings on
dissection, which cured liver-complaints if sus-
pended from the right arm, while those found in
the nest with the young rendered the wearer safe
from coughs. With regard to the toilet : — he
who wishes to forestal the advance of age, which
most men eschew, may come out with a venerable
white head, and the d-devant jeune homme with a
jet black one, if he will only attend to the prescrip-
tions of Galen and Marcellus Kiranides, and mingle
the somewhat unsavory ingredients which they
recommend with different parts and secretions of
the swallow. If you find you don't succeed, you
must settle your accounts with the authors above
named — Pliny, Celsus, Jacobus Olivarius, Hiero-
nymus Montuus, and other learned physicians,
now, as the old covenanters used to say, " gone,
to their place."

But, seriously, whatever may be thought of the
copious materia medica which a swallow was sup-
posed to carry about with him in the olden time,
there can be little or no doubt that the lapilli or
little stones mentioned by Galen and others, were
actually found in the young birds, or in their nests ;
otherwise we should not have them figured in such
a work as the Metallotheca Vaticana. Their pres-
ence may be thus accounted for. As a help to
the digestion of their insect food, the old swallows
are said to give their young ones occasional doses
of sand and grit ; these cohering, may be formed
into the stones alluded to, and may be either cast —
for Mr. Trevelyan observed that the swallow casts
after the fashion of an hawk or owl — voided, or
found in the bodies of the young on dissection.

This looks very like a dissertation on swallows^
and any one who may take up these leaves may
feel inclined to " put them down" under the terror
of the many species that remain to be noticed ; but
no : interesting as is their history, but one other
form of swallow, if swallow it may be called, shall
here appear.

The wood-swallowf — the Be-wowen of the abo^

* Folio. Romae, MDCCXIX., p. 183.

t Artamus sordidus. There are several species of
Artami, of which the bird under consideration appears to-
be the most extensively distributed. " No other species
of the Australian Arlami with which I am acquainted,""

28

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

rigines of the lowland and mountain district of
Western Australia, and the Worle of those of
King George's Sound — bids fair to become as
great a favorite with the inhabitants of that fifth
quarter of the globe, destined probably to be the
seat of a great empire hereafter, as the true swal-
low is with Europeans. Few birds have been
more bandied about by systematic ornithologists.
Latham made it a thrush, Cuvier an Ocypterus,
and Wagler a Leptopteryx. The Australian col-
onists appear to have been as near the mark as
any of the learned when they gave it the name
which it still bears among them, though they may
not have hit the bull's eye.

Mr. Gould describes it as a bird of pleasing
actions, often taking up its abode and incubating
near the houses, particularly such as are surrounded
by paddocks and open pasture-lands, skirted by
large trees. It was in such situations as these in
Van Diemen's Land, that this enterprising traveller
and excellent ornithologist first observed it at the
commencement of spring. The species was there
very numerous on all the cleared estates on the
north side of the Derwent, about eight or ten being
seen on a single tree, and half as many crowding
against each other on the same dead branch, but
never in such numbers as to deserve the appella-
tion of flocks. Each bird appeared to act inde-
pendently of the other, each, as the desire for food
prompted it, sallying forth from the branch, to
capture a passing insect, or to soar, round the tree
and return again to the same spot. This habit
appears to me to indicate some relationship to the
fly-catchers. But to return to Mr. Gould, who
goes on to state, that, on alighting, it repeatedly
throws up and closes one wing at a time, and
spreads the tail obliquely prior to settling. Some-
times he saw a few perched on the fence surround-
ing the paddock, on which they frequently de-
scended like starlings, in search of coleopterous
and other insects. It is not, however, he adds,
in this state of comparative quiescence that this
graceful bird is seen to the greatest advantage,
neither is it that kind of existence for which its
form is especially adapted ; for although its struc-
ture, according to Mr. Gould, is more equally
suited for terrestrial, arboreal, and aerial habits,
than that of any other species which he had ex-
amined, the form of its wing, he observes, at once
points out the air as its peculiar province.

Hence it is (remarks Mr. Gould, in continuation)
that when engaged in pursuit of the insects, which
the serene and warm weather has enticed from their
lurking-places among the foliage to sport in higher
regions, this beautiful species in these aerial flights
displays its greatest beauty while soaring above in
a variety of easy positions, with white-tipped tail
widely spread.

But another extraordinary habit — which, how-
•ever, Mr. Gould did not himself observe — is rep-
writes Mr. Gould, in his elegant and accurate Birds of
Australia, " possesses so wide a range from east to west
the whole of the southern portion of the continent, as wel
as the island of Van Diemeu's Land, being alike favored
•with its presence."

esented in one of the exquisite plates which
llustrate the grand work from which we have
>een quoting.

Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gould's assistant, gave him
he following information, the result of what Mr.
Gilbert saw at Swan river : —

The greatest peculiarity in the habits of this bird
s its manner of suspending itself in perfect clusters,
ike a swarm of bees ; a few birds suspending them-
selves on the under side of a dead branch, while
others of the flock attach themselves one to the other
n such numbers, that they have been observed
nearly of the size of a bushel measure.

This habit of clustering shows itself in the Eu-
ropean swallow. Sir Charles Wager relates, that
in the spring of the year, as he came into sound-
ings in our channel, a great flock of swallows
:ame and settled on all his rigging ; every rope,
IB says, was crowded. " They hung on one an-
other like a swarm of bees ; the decks and carving
were filled with them. They seemed almost
famished and spent, and were only feathers and
bones ; but, being recruited with a night's rest,
took their flight in the morning."

These weary travellers were evidently on their
way northward, and must have passed over
France.

Mr. Gould found the Australian wood-swallow
very numerous in the town of Perth, until about
the middle of April, and then he missed it sud-
denly, and did not observe it again until near the
end of May, when he saw it in countless num-
bers flying in company with the common swallows
and martens over a lake about ten miles north of
the town — so numerous, indeed, that he describes
them as darkening the water as they flew over it.
Its voice, he says, greatly resembles that of the
common swallow in character, but it is much more
harsh. He describes the stomach as muscular and
capacious, and the food as consisting of insects
generally.

In Van Dieman's Land it may, Mr. Gould adds,
be regarded as strictly migratory. It arrives
there, according to his observation, in October, the
beginning of the Australian summer, and after
rearing at least two broods, departs again north-
wards in November. A scattered few remain
throughout the year on the continent in all the
localities favorable to their habits, the number
being regulated by the supply of insect food. He
remarks, that specimens from Swan river, South
Australia, and New South Wales, present no
difference, either in size or coloring, while those
from Van Diemen's Land are invariably larger in
all their admeasurements, and are also of a deeper
color.

The general season of incubation is from Sep-
tember to December, and the situation of the nest
much varied. Mr. Gould saw one in a thickly-
foliaged bush near the ground ; others, in a naked
fork, on the side of the bole of a tree, in a niche
formed by a portion of the bark having been sepa-
rated from the trunk, &c. The nest itself he
describes as rather shallow, of a rounded form,

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

29

about five inches in diameter, and composed of
fine twigs, neatly lined with fibrous roots. He
observed that the nests found in Van Diemen's
Land were larger, more compact, and more neatly
formed, than those on the continent of Australia ;
and one which was shown to him by Mr. Justice
Montague, near Hobart Town, was placed at the
extremity of a small leafy branch. The nest
figured by Mr. Gould is so represented.

By the way, Mr. Yarrel gives, in his highly
interesting British Birds, a vignette executed from
a drawing by Mr. Edward Cooke for the late Mr.
Wells, of Redleaf. It represents a nest of our
common swallow built on a bough of a sycamore,
which hung low over a pond at the Moat, Pens-
hurst, in Ken* in the summer of 1832.

Mr. Gould describes the eggs of Artamus sor-
didus, which are four in number, as differing
much in the disposition of their markings, of a
dull white ground color, spotted and dashed with
dark umber brown ; in some, he says, a second
series of grayish spots appear, as if beneath the
surface of the shell ; medium length eleven lines,
and breadth eight.

The head, neck, and the whole of the body of
the bird are of a sooty gray; the wings dark-bluish
black ; the external edges of the second, third,
and fourth primaries, white. The tail is black,
with a tinge of blue, and all its feathers, except
the two middle ones, have extensive white tips.
The irides are dark brown, and the blue bill has a
black tip. The feet are lead color ;' sexes alike
in color, the female rather the smaller ; length,
nearly six inches. Mr. Gould remarks, that the
young have an irregular stripe of dirty white
down the centre of each feather of the upper sur-
face, and are mottled with the same on the under
surface.

April 1. — Yesterday the weathercocks, which
had so long been fixtures, veered round —

Grat& vice veris et Favoni.

Every bud is now bursting, every seed is
swelling now. All Nature is prolific, reminding
us of the great egg of Night that floated in chaos,
and was broken by the horns of the celestial bull.
From this egg* sprang up like a blossom Eros, the
lovely, the desirable, with his glossy, golden
oinionsj — Eros, the elder Cupid, the personifica-
tion of divine love.

All sublunary eggs, in which the principle of
life glows, are now advancing ; and the remem-
brance of a promise to relate the attempt of the
poor incarcerated white-headed eagles to incubate
rises.

The female white-headed eagle (Halia'itos
leucocephalus) laid her first egg on the 5th of

* The TtQMTov wov, the first great egg or seed of the
ancient philosophy. A serpent was coiled round it, em-
blematical of the eternal divine wisdom. Its image was
worshipped in the temple of the Dioscuri, Helen's
brothers, as a representation, probably, of Leda's produc-
tion. The breaking of the egg by the horns of the bull
is typical of the genial effect of spring.

t Aristophanes, Aves, 1. 694. Bekker.

3

April, 1845, and a second on the 8th of the same
month, on a rough nest, composed of litter and
twigs, &c., on the floor of her apartment in the
eagle-hut at the garden in the Regent's Park.

What a prison for a bird whose home is on the
rock that shoots up from the lake, or the cliffs
which overhang the mighty river or the wide sea !
Niagara is a favorite resort of the white-headed, or
bald eagle — the latter appellation a misnomer, for
no bird has a better feathered head. There it
sits or soars on the watch for the fish, and also for
the carcases of squirrels, deer, bears, and other
quadrupeds, which, in their attempts to cross the
river above the falls, have been caught by the
current and dashed down those awful cataracts.

It is a very powerful bird, three feet long, and
seven in alar extent ; and- has been seen flying off
with a lamb ten days old ; but it let the prey fall
from a height of ten or twelve feet, in consequence
of its struggles and the shouts of the spectator,
who ran with loud halloos after the depredator ;
the poor lamb's back, however, was broken by the
crushing swoop. Nay, a white-headed eagle has
been known to seize and throw down an infant,
and drag it for a short distance, when the cries of
the mother, who had set down the little innocent
to amuse itself while she weeded her garden, and
the giving way of the child's dress, a portion of
which the eagle bore off, saved its life. Thus
was a second scene of the " Bird and Bantling"
happily cut short.

It will also attack old and sickly sheep, aiming
furiously at their eyes.

In short, he is a most determined brigand,
whose portrait has been admirably painted by Wil-
son. Look on this picture : —

Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic
tree, that commands a wide view of the neighboring
shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate
the motions of the various feathered tribes that pur-
sue their busy avocations below ; — the snow-white
gulls slowly winnowing the air ; the busy tringse
coursing along the sands ; trains of ducks streaming
over the surface ; silent and watchful cranes, intent
and wading ; clamorous crows, and all the winged
multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast
liquid magazine of Nature. High over all these
hovers one whose action instantly arrests all his
attention. By his wide curvature of wing and
sudden suspension in the air, he knows him to be
the fish-hawk, settling over some devoted victim
of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and
balancing himself, with half-opened wings on the
branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an
arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of
his attention, the roar of its wings reaching the ear
as it disappears in the deep, making the surges
foam around. At this moment the eager looks of
the eagle are all ardor, and, levelling his neck for
flight, he sees the fish-hawk once more emerge
struggling with his prey, and mounting in the air
with screams of exultation. These are the signal
for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly
gives chase, soon gains on the fish-hawk ; each ex-
erts his utmost to mount above the other, display-
ing in these rencontres the most elegant and sublime
aerial evolutions. The unimcumbered eagle rap-

30

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

idly advances, and is just on the point of reaching
his opponent, when, with a sudden scream probably
of despair and honest execration, the latter drops
his fish. The eagle, poising himself for a moment,
as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a
whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches
the water, and bears his ill-gotton booty silently
away to the woods.

This is very beautiful and very poetical, and,
what is more, very true. But there are two sides
to a question, as there were to the shield about
which the two silly knights fought. Turn we
now to honest, homely Benjamin Franklin's view
of the case.

In his letter to Mrs. Bache, dated Passy, Jan-
uary 26, 1784, he observes, that the gentleman
who made his voyage . to France to provide the
ribands and medals nad executed his commis-

To me (says that venerable philosopher and
sturdy republican) they seem tolerably done ; but
all such things are criticized. Some find fault with
the Latin, as wanting classical elegance and cor-
rectness ; and since our nine universities were not
able to furnish better Latin, it was a pity, they say,
that the mottoes had not been in English. Others
object to the title, as not properly assumable by
any but General Washington and a few others who
served without pay. Others object to the bald
eagle, as looking like a dindon, or turkey.

For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not
been chosen as the representative of our country ;
he is a bird of bad moral character ; he does not
get his living honestly. You may have seen him
perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish
for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-
hawk ; and when that diligent bird has at length
taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the
support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle
pursues him and takes it from him. With all this
injustice he is never in good case, but, like those
among men who live by sharping and robbing, he
is generally poor, and often very lousy. Besides,
he is a rank coward ; the little king-bird, not bigger
than a sparrow, attacks him boldly, and drives him
out of the district. He is, therefore, by no means
a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincin-
nati of America, who have driven all the fo'n^-birds
from our country, though exactly fit for that order
of knights which the French call Chevaliers d' In-
dustrie. I am, on this account, not displeased that
the figure is not known as a bald eagle, but looks
more like a turkey. For, in truth, the turkey is,
in comparison, a much more respectable bird, and
withal a true original native of America. Eagles
have been found in all countries, but the turkey
was peculiar to ours ; the first of the species seen
in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits
from Canada, and served up at the wedding-table
of Charles IX.

He is, besides, (though a little vain and silly, 't is
true, but not the worse emblem for that,) a bird of
courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grena-
dier of the British Guards, who should presume to
invade his farm-yard with a red coat on.

The editor of this interesting correspondence
remarks that a learned friend had observed to
him, that the assertion about the first turkey being
brought to France, &c., is a mistake, as turkeys

were found in great plenty by Cortes when he in-
vaded and conquered Mexico, before the time of
Charles IX., and that this, and their being
brought to old Spain, is mentioned by Peter Mar-
tyr of Angelina, who was secretary to the council
of the Indies, established immediately after the
discovery of America, and personally acquainted
with Columbus.

But, after all, the white-headed eagle is a bold
fellow ; and Mr. Gardiner relates, that when
riding within five or six rods of one, the bird, by
raising his feathers and his general defying de-
meanor, seemed willing to dispute the ground
with its owner.

As for the vultures, the eagle treats them as
so much dirt ; and, indeed, they are little better.
He has been frequently seen to keep them at a
respectful distance — especially upon one occasion,
when a whole colony of hapless squirrels had been
hurried down the falls of Niagara — till he had
completely satiated himself with the harvest of
death ; but, when pressed by hunger, he plays
the same game with a well-filled vulture as he
does, ordinarily, with the fish-hawk, attacking it
furiously, making the cowardly glutton disgorge
the carrion with which its craw is crammed, and
then snatching up the dainty contents.

The nest in a state of nature is generally fixed
on some large, lofty tree, often in a swamp or
morass ; and, if the tree be a favorite, will there
be continued for years in succession. From being
thus repaired and added to every season, it be-
comes a dark, prominent mass, catching the eye
at a considerable distance. To form it, sticks,
sods, earthy rubbish, hay, moss, &c., are collected.
The eggs are two in number, and Wilson men-
tions a story about the female laying a single
egg first, and, after having sat on it for some
time, laying another. When the first is hatched,
the warmth of that, they say, hatches the second.
Upon the correctness of this tale, Wilson declines
to determine ; but he relates, that a very respect-
able gentleman in Virginia assured him that he
saw a large tree cut down, containing the nest of
a bald eagle, wherein were two young, one of
which appeared nearly three times as large as
the other. One of these nestlings might have
had the lion's share of the food brought by the
parents ; but the story of the hatching at long
intervals is so contrary to all known rules of incu-
bation, that it must be received with the greatest
doubt.

We must leave the grand native solitudes
where this eagle constructs his eyry, for the cab-
ined, cribbed, confined cell, where our poor pris-
oners did their best to obey nature's law.

The female began to sit on her eggs on the 8th
of April, and the pair were seen by hundreds
steadily persevering, notwithstanding the gaze of
the visitors, from day to day, in a close incubation
till the 6th of June, when the worthless eggs were
removed. The male was very attentive to the
female, and both took their regular turns in sitting.
Their entire want of success seems, however, t»

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

31

have disgusted them with the whole proceeding,
for we cannot learn that the female has produced
an egg since.

The attachment of the parents to the young,
though it does not seem to reach the self-devotion
of the stork, to which I have in a former chapter
alluded, is very great. A person near Norfolk,
U. S., informed Wilson, that in clearing a piece
of woods on his ground, they met with a large
dead pine-tree, on which was a nest of one of
these birds containing young. Fire was set to
the tree, the crackling flames ascended, the tree
was in a blaze more than half-way up ; the
wretched parent darted round and round through
the fire until her plumage was so much injured
that it was with difficulty she made her escape,
and, even in that condition, she several times at-
tempted to return, all the mother rising in her,
and driving her to attempt the relief of her doomed
nestlings.

In a dissection by Dr. Samuel Smith, of Phil-
adelphia, the eggs were found to be small and
numerous ; and this, the observer remarks, may
account for the unusual excitement manifested by
these birds in pairing time. But, he adds, why
there are so many is a mystery.

It is, perhaps, consistent with natural law that
everything should be abundant ; but from this bird,
it is said, no more than two young are hatched in a
season, consequently no more eggs are wanted than
a sufficiency to produce that effect. Are the eggs
numbered originally, and is there no increase of
number, but a gradual loss till all are deposited 1
If so, the number may correspond to the long life
and vigorous health of this noble bird. Why there
are but two young in a season is easily explained.
Nature has been studiously parsimonious of her
physical strength, from whence the tribes of ani-
mals incapable to resist derive security and confi-
dence.

That which the indefatigable Mr. Gould could
not obtain in the native country of the bird, he
may now find in the Garden of the Zoological
Society of London. The wedge-tailed eagle,*
the Wol-dja of the aborigines of the mountain and
lowland districts of Western Australia, the eagle-
hawk of the colonists, and the mountain eagle of
New South Wales, of Collins, laid the first egg
deposited in this country by one of her race on
the 27th of February in the present year. On
the 28th it was placed under a common hen, which
sat very close, but fruitlessly, and on the 21st of
March the addled egg was removed. On the 4th

* Aquila fucosa, Cuv. In the gallery of the French
Museum it appears to have been ticketed, according to
Mr. Bennett, as Aq'uila fuscosa, a name under which it
is mentioned in the Supplement to the Dictionnaire des
Sciences Naturelles, in the English translation of Cuvier's
work, and in the last edition published hy himself. Mr.
Bennett supposes that this "unmeaning term " crept in
erroneously for fucosa, as Temminck and Vigors both
write it, and as ornithologists now generally do. Some
better appellation than either might have been found for
so nohle a species. But names must not he altered, or
the greatest confusion — there is quite enough already —
would prevail.

of March she laid a second egg, which was also
placed under a hen now sitting.

What the golden eagle is to the northern hem-
isphere, the wedge-tailed eagle is to the southern.
Universally spread over the southern portion of
Australia, numerous in Van Diemen's Land and
on the larger islands of Bass' Straits, Mr. Gould
is of opinion that it will, in all probability, be
found to extend its range as far towards the tropics
in the south as the golden eagle does in the north.
Of great power and ferocity, it is the scourge of
the shepherds and stock-owners, who wage deadly
war against it, and unweariedly seek its extirpa-
tion. One, killed by Mr. Gould, weighed nine
pounds, and measured six feet eight inches in alar
extent; but his impression is, that far Larger indi-
viduals have come under his notice. Some opin-
ion of its strength may be formed from the act of
the bird figured by Collins, which was captured
by Captain Waterhouse, during an excursion to
Broken Bay, and struck its talons through a man's
foot, while lying in the bottom of the boat with
its legs tied together. During the ten days of its
captivity, it refused food from all but one person.
The natives, who looked on it with fear, could not
be prevailed on to go near it, and they asserted
that it would carry off a middling-sized kanguroo.
But the brave bird could not brook confinement ;
and one morning the broken rope, by which it was
fastened, was all that remained. The captive had
divided the strands and soared away.

Its natural prey consists chiefly of the smaller
species of kanguroo. These its piercing eye de-
tects as it wheels aloft, circling gracefully till a
victim is marked, when down it conies with uner-
ring and fell swoop. Mr. Gould states that the
bustard,* whose weight is twice that of its enemy,
and which finds a more secure asylum on the ex-
tensive plains of the interior, is not safe from its
attacks ; and Mr. Cunningham mentions even the
emew as its prey. But the kanguroos seem to
have been its staple, and probably still are in those
parts of the interior where civilized man has not
yet penetrated. Of the multitudes of those quad-
rupeds in old times we may judge by the account
given by Captain Flinders of Kanguroo Island,
where they were living in amity with the seals,
as appears from the picturesque engraving from
the drawing made by the lamented Mr. Westall.
The captain writes that it was too late to go on
shore in the evening of Sunday, 21st March, 1802,
but every glass in the ship was pointed there to
see what could be discovered. Several black
lumps, like rocks, were asserted to have been seen
in motion by some of the young gentlemen, of
whom the gallant Sir John Franklin, for whose

* This was probably the bird shot hy Mr. Ferdinand
Bauer on Wellesley's Islands, which weighed between
ten and twelve pounds, and made Captain Flinders and
his party " an excellent dinner," after poor Mr. Bauer
had carried it on his back many a weary furlong. The
captain remarks that the flesh of this bird is distributed
in a manner directly contrary to that of the domestic
turkey ; the white meat being upon the legs, ard the
black upon the breast.

32

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

safety all good men pray, was one. Next morn-
ing a number of dark-brown kanguroos were ob-
served peaceably feeding upon a grass-plat by the
side of a wood, and the landing of Captain Flin-
ders and his party gave the unsuspecting animals
no disturbance.

I (writes the captain) had with me a double-
barrelled gun, fitted with a bayonet, and the gentle-
men, my companions, had muskets. It would be
difficult to guess how many kanguroos were seen ;
but I killed ten, and the rest of the party made up
the number to thirty-one, taken on board in the
course of the day — the least of them weighing
sixty-nine, and the largest one hundred and twenty-
five pounds. These kanguroos had much resem-
blance to the larger species found in the forest lands
of New South Wales ; except that their color was
darker, and they were not wholly destitute of fat.

The captain records this slaughter with some
compunction.

After this butchery, for the poor animals suffered
themselves to be shot in the eyes with small shot,
and in some cases to be knocked on the head with
sticks, I scrambled with difficulty through the
brushwood, and over fallen trees, to reach the
higher land with the surveying instruments ; but
the thickness and height of the wood prevented any-
thing else from being distinguished. There was
little doubt, however, that this extensive piece of
land was separated from the continent ; for the
extraordinary lameness of the kanguroos, and the
presence of seals upon the shore, concurred with
the absence of all traces of men to show that it was
not inhabited.

But the sheep now walks where the kanguroo
formerly bounded, and the wedge-tailed destroyer
makes terrible havoc with the lambs. Not that it

will refuse carrion ; fbr Mr. Gould, during one of
his journeys into the interior to the northward of
Liverpool Plains, saw no less than thirty or forty
assembled together round the carcass of a dead
bullock; some, gorged to the full, perched upon
the neighboring trees, the rest still in the enjoy-
ment of the feast. And he adds, that for the sake
of the refuse thrown away by the kanguroo hunt-
ers it will often follow them for many miles, and
even for days together.

The nests observed by the same scientific trav-
eller were placed in the most inaccessible trees,
were very large, nearly flat, and built of sticks and
boughs. The eggs he never could procure.

One word more, friendly reader, and you shall
be left to more instructive and attractive matter.
The. latest news from Egypt reports the young
hippopotamus to be thriving and waxing strong, but
more good-natured and amiable than ever. His
teeth are advancing ; he takes his rice and meal
with such a hearty good will that his allowance
of milk — to the great comfort, no doubt, of the
good people of Cairo, who must have had some
fears of a famine of that nutritious beverage — is
reduced to fifty pints a day ; and this Brobdignag
baby has contrived to win good Mr. Murray's
heart so effectually, that it is hoped he may em-
bark for England, with his huge pet, somewhere
about the 10th of May next, by which time it is
expected that the infant's daily stint may be com-
fortably lowered to twenty-five pints. And so,
farewell for the present. Before these notes
meet your eye the groves and gardens will be
vocal, and rejoicing nature will be glowing under
the influence of spring —

Cum Zephyris et hirundine prima.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

33

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NAT-
URALIST.

PARTHENOPE, Ligeia, Leucosia — these are
pretty names as ever were bestowed on the off-
spring of a river god and a muse ; nor are Molpe,
Aglaophonos, and Thelxiope* — which some will
have it were the true designations of the daugh-
ters of Achelous and Melpomene — unmusical.
Blest with powers of voice and fascination equal
to Sontag — for, however the habitues of her maj-
esty's theatre may reasonably doubt it, they too
were irresistible — the sirens, unlike that fair,
spotless enchantress, poured forth their gush of
song to the ruin of their entranced audience,
though they certainly never executed Rode's va-
riations ; it may, indeed, be doubted whether any
sublunary being, with the exception of the gifted
countess, ever could — at least with her supreme
excellence. And so these accursed of Ceres con-
tinued in their course of musical murder, sur-
rounded by the corses of their victims, whose re-
mains were wreathed with flowers, radiant with
beauty, as our own Etty has depicted them, till
their career was closed by the wily Greek, who
had received his lesson from another mistress of
enchantment ; and so they perished.

But, it seems, their crimes were not sufficiently
expiated. Years rolled on their ceaseless course.
Greece was swallowed up by Rome, who in her
turn fell at the feet of the Goth ; and in the ful-
ness of time there arose a wizard from the great
northern hive, he of the polar star, who waved
his wand, aroused the sirens from the annihilation
into which they had escaped, and degraded them
into one of the lowest reptile forms of America.

The Arabs have a saying that monkeys are en-
chanted men, and the most elegant of modern
poets has been heard to declare that they reminded
him of poor relations ; but what is the lot of hu-
manity so transformed, compared to the degrada-
tion of sirens into Perennibranchiate Batrachians 1

What on earth are Perennibranchiate Batra-
chians ?

A Batrachian, in the language of the learned,
means a reptile of the great frog family, and a
Perennibranchiate — there is certainly some ses-
quipedality in the word, as there too often is in
those coined by the scientific ; with all due sub-
mission to their worships be it written — a Pe-
rennibranchiate Batrachian is one that does not
go through metamorphosis, like a common frog
for instance, (which first bursts upon the aquatic
world as a tadpole, then acquires limbs, and then
drops his tail and gills, as becomes a citizen of

* Or, according to others, Thelxione. The maternity
is given by some genealogists to Calliope, by others to
Terpsichore ; but the better opinion is, that Melpomene
was the mamma of these deluders. Like other irregular
branches of families they became troublesome to theirs ;
V116™ ng fr[end' Hera> excited them to contend with
the Muses, who conquered them, and, as a punishment
for their presumption, tore off their wings.

the terrestrial as well as the watery world thence-
forth blessed with lungs,) but remains a gill-
breathing, muddy, fishlike groveller, all the days
of its life.

In my zoological obituary for last March, I find
the death of Siren lacertina recorded towards the
end of the month. The melancholy event took
place in the garden of the Society in the Regent's
Park, where the siren had lived for many years
in the parrot-house, domiciled in a vessel of pond
water, with a bottom of deep mud. It was
during its life as vivacious as anything existing
in inky-looking mud could be, and throve well on
worms — with some dozen and a half of which it
was daily supplied— and small fish. It was very
eel-like in its motions, though blessed with two
small anterior extremities ; but as you may wish
to know something about the animal, curious
reader, here is a description of it, which those
who are not inquisitive may skip if they please.

The generic character of the sirens consists in
an elongated form, nearly similar to that of the
eels. There are three external branchial or gill
tufts on each side. No posterior feet, but two
anterior small ones. Not a vestige of a pelvis.
The head depressed ; the gape of the mouth mod-
erate ; the muzzle obtuse ; the eye very little ;
the ear concealed ; the lower jaw sheathed with
a horny substance, and aimed with several rows
of small teeth ; the upper jaw toothless ; on the
palate numerous small retroverted denticles.

Such is the reptile of which Dr. Garden, in
the years 1765, 1766, sent a description to Ellis
and Linnaeus, when the immortal Swede estab-
lished an additional order for the siren in his class
Amphibia — the order Meantes. Such is an out-
line of the creature which Cuvier pronounced to
be one of the most remarkable of the class of rep-
tiles, nay, of the whole animal kingdom ; a bold
declaration, but borne out by the anomalies of its
structure, its relationship to different families, and
its approximation even to different classes.

Thus, Pallas, Hermann, Schneider, and Lace-
pede, classed it as the larva of a great unknown
salamander. Camper placed it among the fishes.
He was followed by Gmelin, who made an eel of
it, conferring on it the name of Mur&na siren;
and 't is almost a pity that the last-named worthy
doctor was dead wrong in making it a Murecna ;
it would have been so everlasting classical for
that enlightened republican, brother Jonathan, who
loves to copy the Romans, to have thrown his
slaves to the Murcena. But he may still be imi-
tative, and throw them to the sirens. Only, in-
stead of going to the rocks and deep blue sea
where the sirens of old haunted — as you, young
gentleman, have read in your Virgil* — he must
condemn them to be laid in the marshes where
the luxuriant crops of rice wave. There, and in
swamps, under the entangled roots of time-worn
trees, the American siren lurks, and thence ob-

v. 684. These rocks are understood to have
been the island of Caprese, the retreat of the tiger-like
Tiberius, who, it is said, could see like a cat in the dark.

34

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

tained the somewhat unclassical name of " The
Mud Iguana." And if you wish to be acquainted
with the proportions of the Transatlantic form,
know that Siren lacertina, one of the sisters,
(whose death we have above recorded,) grows to
the length of three feet, a dark anguillary beauty,
of some intensity of color, with two little hands,
(or fore feet, if you must be critical,) of four rin-
gers each, and instead of lower extremities, a
compressed tail, with an obtuse fin. When I last
saw the defunct, the creature was as large as a
child's wrist, and flounced about most vigorously
upon being lifted out of its inky bed. Death
came upon it at the end of March. Two days
before the fatal event it had devoured two small
fishes. The weather was unseasonably cold, and
frost and snow prevailed.

But the siren has, of course, some vocal power?

As if to make the mockery complete, this siren
was said to have the voice of a duck ; but even
this has been denied. The captive siren of the
Regent's Park was never heard to utter any
sound.

This is no place for anatomical or physiological
detail, or much might be said relative to this most
curious form. Those who feel interested, will be
rewarded for referring to John Hunter, Cuvier,
and Owen. The last-named distinguished com-
parative anatomist has recorded some most val-
uable observations on the blood-discs of this ba-
trachian, and their comparison with those of man.*
The siren's blood-discs were obtained by the pro-
fessor from one of the external gills of the de-
ceased specimen when it was in good health, in
the month of October, 1841.

But, without loading these pages with scientific
disquisition, it is impossible that any one should
even glance at the history and conformation of the
sirens without being struck with the anomalies
which they present. Pallas and the other dis-
tinguished zoologists above-mentioned, may well
be pardoned for considering the form that of one
of the SalamandridcR in its progress to perfection.
The first sight of it suggests the presence of a
salamander in a metamorphic stage, and it is only
upon close examination that the observer is satis-
fied that the animal has reached its completion.
It is as if Nature had been determined to show,
that if she wished to indulge in the freak, she
could arrest the animal's development, and, under
the guise of a salamandrian larva, present a crea-
ture perfect according to its kind, and forming a
finished link in the great chain of beings, as per-
fect, after its kind, as Sieboldtia maxima, in which
enormous newt, the slits of the gill-aperture —
which 'always remains open in Menopoma, an
American salamandrian — are closed.

Dr. Von Siebold found this creature — which
comes nearest of living beings to Scheuchzer's
Homo diluvii testis, now termed Andrias Scheuch-
zeri, and which has been proved to be a great fos-

* See Penny Cyclopaedia, article " Siren (Zoology),"
vol. xxii., p. 66 ; where these observations and a history
of the animal will be found.

sil salamandrian — in a lake on a mountain of
basalt, in Japan ; just such a locality as we find
assigned in the Arabian Nights to enchanted
aquatics. The doctor brought with him a male
and a female ; but the former was so fond of his
wife that he ate her up on the passage home, and
arrived, consequently, in the best health and spirits
at Leyden, measuring about three feet in length.

About the time of the siren's death there were
hopes that a young dromedary would make its
appearance ; and, indeed, one had been born in
the Regent's Park previously. But in this last
case the young creature was stillborn, though its
mother had bred it well. The period of gestation
is stated to be between eleven and twelve months.

Viewed with the eye of even a comparatively
careless observer, the camel presents one of the
most complete instances of design with relation tc
human wants. There is not a part of its struc-
ture, from the bony framework of the skeleton to
the external hair of its coat, that could be omitted
without injury to the wonderful work, or improved.
Those very parts which seem deformities, are ab-
solutely necessary to its well-being and destina-
tion, and the hump and callosities become beauties
when examined with reference to the exigencies
of the animal, and its condition as the slave of
man.

And here arises the question whether this hump
and these callosities are natural formations, or due
to the pressure of the loads with which the animal
has for ages been burdened, and to the weight of
its body. The callosities are seven in number,
and upon these the pressure of the body is thrown
when the creature kneels down and rises up.
They have been observed upon a newly-born
camel ; but no child is born with corns on the toes
and feet, whatever fashion and tight shoes may
have done for its parent — at least I never heard
of a baby who came into the world with those
excruciating afflictions. Not that it may not be
admitted, that in a long course of years these
marks of servitude, as they have been termed,
may have been more largely developed. Dr.
Walter Adam, in his paper on the osteology of
the Bactrian camel, remarks, that the dorsal ver-
tebrae of the animal on which he made his obser-
vations had been modified by the pressure of its
loads. We know that by careful breeding, the
horns of the ox and the sheep may be made to
assume almost every grade of excess and defect,
till they vanish altogether, and a hornless race is
obtained. Those who delight in oddities, know
how to secure a breed of rumpless fowls and tail-
less cats. The dapper, clean-legged bantams,
for which Sir John Sebright was famous, were
remarkable for the absence of the sickle-shaped,
drooping feathers, from the tails of the cocks,
whence they were called by some bird-fanciers
" Hen-cocks." This absence had been the result
of the greatest care and attention to the breed.
In all these cases, the change or modification is
limited to externals. The internal organization
of the animals remains absolutely the same

LEAVES FKOM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

35

Now, whether we look at the grotesque figure
sf the camel, or investigate its internal structure,
we find the most unmistakable evidence of adap-
tation to that state of life to which it has pleased
the great Author of its being to call it. Born
for the desert, the callosities prevent the skin from
cracking at those points where the weight of the
animal rests upon the arid, burning sands. The
strong, nipper-like upper incisor teeth are fit in-
struments for cutting through the tough plants and
shrubs that spring here and there on those bound-
less wastes. The nostrils are so organized that
the animal can effectually close them, and defy
the stormy, destructive sand-drifts that sweep
harmlessly by him. " The desert ship" seems
to float rather than step on the elastic, pad-like
cushions of its spreading feet, moving as noise-
lessly as Mr. Mark's vulcanized Indian-rubber
wheel-tires convey a carriage over a granite pave-
ment.

What always struck me as something extremely
romantic and mysterious (writes Mr. Macfarlane)
was the noiseless step of the camel, from the
spongy nature of his feet. Whatever be the nature
of the ground — sand, or rock, or turf, or paved
stones — you hear no foot-fall ; you see an immense
animal approaching you stilly as a cloud floating
on air, and unless he wear a bell your sense of
hearing, acute as it may be, will give you no inti-
mation of his presence.

Riley, too, notices the silent passage of a train
of camels up a rocky steep, and accounts for the
silence because their feet are as soft as sponge or
leather. The structure of his stomach enables
the camel to digest the coarsest vegetable tissues,
and he even prefers such plants as a horse would
not touch, to the finest pasture. He is satisfied
with very little, and if he should be stinted even
of this hard fare, the fat hump contains a store of
nourishment to be taken up into the system, and
sustain it till he reaches some oasis of tough
prickly bushes, which he discusses with the great-
est relish ; and, if the best of liquids be there,
fills the water-tanks with which his interior is
fitted up, and goes on his way rejoicing.

One word more — without trespassing upon the
province of the anatomist or the patience of the
general reader — as to the modification which even
the hardest parts of the animal frame will undergo
to answer the exigencies of the demand. Dr.
Adam found that the burdens of the baggage-
camel from Bengal, which he examined, and
which — poor, indefatigable workman — had done
its duty more scrupulously than many of the biped
laborers in the vineyard of this world, had much
altered the form of the dorsal vertebras. He ob-
served that the natural breadth of the bodies of
those vertebrae seemed to be not greater than the
wideness of the nostrils ; but, owing to the great
weights borne by the patient animal whose re-
mains came under the doctor's observation, the
enlargement was such that those bones presented
an instance of exostosis rather than of normal
proportion — though still that enlargement had

seen controlled by the laws of symmetry. The
greatest breadth was attained at the connection of
the fifth and the sixth dorsal vertebra? ; there the
pressure of the burdens had evidently been most
severe ; and the summit of the hump was at the
sixth. Thus was the back strengthened for the
burden.

Dr. Adam suggests that it is not improbable
that the symmetry of the swift dromedaries will
be found to be much more complete than that of
the baggage-camel. The load for the latter is
variously stated ; some make it six, some seven,
and others above eight hundred pounds ; nay,
Sandys says that he will carry a thousand. The
swiftness of the dromedary,* el heirie, or, as most
travellers call it, maherry, may be compared with
that of the high-mettled racer, with more endur-
ance. " When thou shalt meet a heirie, and say
to the rider Salem Aleik, ere he shall have an-
swered thee Aleik Salem, he will be afar off, and
nearly out of sight, for his fleetness is like the
wind." A sabayee, said to be the swiftest of this
breed, is good for six hundred thirty miles (thirty-
five days of caravan-travelling) in five days.
Seven or eight miles an hour, for nine or ten
hours a day, is stated to be a common perform-
ance ; and the lamented Captain Lyon, whose
accuracy was strict, relates that a Northern Afri-
can Arabian maherry's long trot, at the rate of
nine miles an hour, will endure for many hours
together.

Cupid has been pictured bestriding the lion and
the dolphin, and Darwin has made him inspire
plants with love ; but when he takes the shape
of an Arabian lover, and mounts his dromedary,
nothing seems impossible — space and time are
annihilated. It is on record that a young man
was passionately fond of a young girl — lovely, of
course — and who on her part had a devouring
passion for oranges. None were to be had for
love or money at Mogadore, and no fruit worthy
of the damsel could be procured nearer than Ma-
rocco. The lover mounted his heirie at dawning,
sped him away to Marocco, a hundred miles from
Mogadore, bagged the desired oranges, and re-
turned home that very night ; but too late to pass,
for the gates were shut. The beauty, however,
was not disappointed, for the gallant Arab made a
friend of one of the guards of the batteries, who
conveyed the golden fruit to the charming expect-
ant. And here the story ends, and it is well that
it does so. The natural hope of plodding Euro-
peans is, that they were married, and lived long
and happily : but then comes the painful truth.
Beauty, which in our northern climes endures
long in rich ripeness, is in Arabia as fleeting as
one of its own flowers. Nothing, we are told,
can exceed the prettiness of an Arab girl, but the
hideous — yes that is the gallant traveller's word
— the hideous ugliness of the old women.

" Train up a child in the way he should go,"

* KctttrjUo? doouas— Camelos dramas, running or swift
camel.

36

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

and, acting upon this principle, the camel-drivers
in some parts of Africa — Senegal for instance —
were wont, soon after the birth of a young camel,
to tie its feet under its belly, throw a large cloth
over its back, and place heavy stones upon each
of the corners of the cloth that rested on the
ground. Thus did the Moors accustom the ani-
mal to receive the loads which it was destined to
carry through a life of labor, generally prolonged
to twenty years. Females, indeed, and such for-
tunate males as are exempt from work, are said to
live for twenty-five or even thirty years.

The European mode of training is not com-
menced till the camel has attained the age of four
years, when the trainers first double up one of his
fore legs, which they bind fast with a cord ; this
they pull, and thus compel the trainee to come
down upon his bent knee. But all pupils are
not equally docile ; and if this method should
fail, as it sometimes does, both legs are tied up,
and the camel falls upon both knees, and on the
callosity which protects the breast. This opera-
tion is often accompanied by a cry and a slight
application of the whip from the trainer ; and, by
degrees, the animal learns at last to lie down
upon his belly, with its legs doubled under it, at
the well-remembered cry and blow, accompanied
by a jerk of its halter. Having attained so
much obedience, the trainer proceeds to place a
pack-saddle on the creature's back. When it is
accustomed to this appendage a light load is put
on, and gradually increased till it reaches the
maximum, which is generally understood to be
fourteen killogrammes, or above eight hundred
pounds, for a full-grown camel.

Such is the mode practised at Pisa ; and though
the Moors brought the animal into Spain, that
appears to be the only locality in Europe where
the camel is now bred. The arid plains and
stunted vegetation at San Rossora seem to have
pointed it out as the proper place for this experi-
ment ; but though success attends it, the breed
seems to dwindle. The foal is obliged to be held
up by attendants to take the maternal nourish-
ment, which in a state of nature the new-born
creature must be in a condition to obtain without
assistance, or continuation of the species must
cease. And here it may be observed, that we
have no authentic account of the camel in a genu-
ine wild state. The earliest records, from the
sacred Scripture downwards, present it in a do-
mesticated state. When Joseph was cast by his
brethren into the pit, and the criminal fraternity
sat down to eat bread, they lifted up their eyes
and looked, and behold a company of Ishmaelites
came from Gilead with their camels, bearing
spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it
down 'to Egypt. And yet in Egypt itself no trace
appears to have been observed on the multitudinous
ancient monuments of the form. It is, indeed, to
be seen on the frieze of the building at Ghirza,
where it is introduced four several times ; and in
one instance a female dromedary is suckling her
young one. When Gideon arose and slew Zebah

and Zalmunna, he took away the ornaments that
were on their camels' necks. Jacob divided the
people that was with him, and the flocks and the
herds, and the camels, into two bands ; and thirty
milch camels and their colts formed part of the
present which he sent to propitiate his ill-used
brother Esau. The camel appears in the forbid-
den list set forth in Leviticus, because he cheweth
the cud but divideth not the hoof. The Chal-
deans made out three bands and fell upon Job's
camels, of which he had three thousand, and car-
ried them away ; and when the Lord blessed the
latter end of Job more than his beginning, the
comforted patriarch possessed six thousand.
When Xerxes invaded Greece camels figured as
part of his enormous host. The Arabians were
stationed in the rear, that the horses might not be
frightened, because they cannot endure camels —
of which more anon ; and when the Great King
was inarching through the Paeonian and Crestoni-
an territories towards the river Echidorus, lions
came down in the night and attacked the camels,
seizing them only, and leaving man and every
other beast unharmed. Herodotus expresses his
wonder that the lions should abstain from all the
rest and set upon the camels — beasts which they
had never before seen or tried,* as was probably
the case with those lions. Before the camel was
known in Africa, beyond the Nile, the country
abounded with lions, and was a kind of preserve
whence the proconsuls drew their supplies for
the Roman amphitheatre ; but about the middle of
the third century, when the Arabs entered Africa,
the numbers of these ravenous beasts of prey
were greatly diminished ; so much so, indeed,
that hunting them was forbidden, except in the
case of privileged persons — a prohibition which
originated in the apprehension that there would
be few or none left for the circus. Honorius put
an end to this prohibition, and then the destruc-
tion of the lions followed ; cultivation increased ;
camels were introduced, facilitating communica-
tion from one point to another without risk of
leonine attack ; and civilization advanced.

It has been already observed that no authentic
record appears of the existence of camels in a
wild state. f And though M. Desmoulins is of
opinion that they were to be found in that state
in Arabia at tne beginning of the second century,
and though the natives of Central Africa declare
that wild camels wander free in the mountains
where European feet have never trod, such asser-
tions are by no means conclusive : for granting
them to be true, such camels may have been de-
scended from domesticated parents, which had,
like the American horses, escaped from their
owners. In one expedition, directed by the great
Assyrian queen, whom Ninus coveted from the
despairing Menones, and obtained to his own des-

* Polymnia, 125.

t With reference to this question it may be worthy of
note, that the fossil remains of a camel are said to have
been detected by Col. Cautley in the sub-Himalayan
range.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

37

truction, three hundred myriads of fooi, a nun-
dred myriads of horse, ten myriads of scythe-
armed chariots, as many of fighting men mounted
on camels, and seventy myriads more of those
beasts destined for various services, were among
the hosts collected at her command. Camels also
carried the artificial elephants, which, to the
number of two millions, Semiramis employed in
her Mesopotamian expedition against the Indians,
in which she was wounded. But if the mother
of Vathek had her Alboufaki, the most hideous,
malignant, and swift of dromedaries, the daugh-
ter of Derceto was mistress of one which, though
it may not have rivalled that of Carathis in ugli-
ness and unearthly propensities, saved her by its
fleetness. Poor Zenobia was not so fortunate,
for the swiftness of her dromedaries could not
prevent her from falling into the hands of Aure-
lian.

In ancient war, besides their use as beasts of
burthen, the swifter races, the maherries of that
day, drew the rapid scythed chariots, mowing
down masses of men in their course ; or carried
howmen, armed also with long swords, to enable
them to reach the cavalry and infantry in personal
encounters.

As for camels, they are nourished in the Levant or
East parts (quoth Philemon Holland, in his transla-
tion of Pliny) among other heards of great cattell :
two kindes there be of them, the Bactrians and the
Arabick : differing herein, that the Bactrians have
two bunches upon their backs ; the other but one
apiece there, but they have another in their brest,
whereupon they rest and ly. Both sorts want the
upper row of teeth in their mouthes, like as bulls
and kine. In those parts from whence they come
they serve all to carry packs, like laboring horses,
and are put to service also in the wars, and are
backed of horsemen : their swiftness is compara-
ble to that of horses ; they grow to a just measure,
and exceed not a certain ordinary strength. The
camell, in his travelling, will not goe a iot farther
than his ordinary journey ; nether will he carry
more than his accustomed and usuall load. Natu-
rally they doe hate horses. They can abide to be
four daies together without drinke ; and when they
drinke or meet with water they fill their skin full
enough to serve both for time past and to come ;
but before they drinke, they must trample with their
feet to raise mud and sand, and so trouble the
water, otherwise they take no pleasure in drinking.
They live comraonly fifty yeares, and some of
them a hundred. These creatures also otherwhile
fall to be mad, so much as it is. Moreover, they
have a device to splay even the very females, to
make them fit for the warres ; for if they be not
covered, they become the stronger and more cour
ageous.

There is one manifest error in this account,
showing that Pliny never could have looked into a
camel's mouth, which has two pointed incisive teeth
implanted in the upper jaw, forming with the six
lower incisors a formidable pair of nippers, admi-
rably adapted for cutting through the tough plants
which form the principal fopd of the animal. The
age, too, is nearly double that assigned to the

camel by the moderns. The antipathy of the
horse, which is frequently alluded to by the an-
cients, still exists in full force, and appears to be
mutual, where use has not reconciled it to the
camel, —

Unjue aquilam cygnus, congrum muraena camelus
Odit equum.

Cyrus availed himself of this antipathy on the
suggestion of Harpagus the Mede to the utter dis-
comfiture of Cnesus. He gathered together the
multitude of camels that followed his army with
provisions and baggage, caused their burthens to
be taken off, and armed men to mount them, and
then ordered them to go in advance of the army
against the Lydian horse. His infantry he placed
immediately behind the camels, and his cavalry ir
the rear of the infantry. Then he gave the cruel
word for no quarter, except to Crcesus, who was
on no account to be killed, whatever resistance he
might make. He thus disposed his troops, adds
Herodotus,* for this reason — a horse is afraid of
a camel, and cannot endure its sight or smell ; and
he had recourse to this stratagem that the cavalry,
by which the Lydian expected to win, might be
useless to Croasus. And so it fell out ; for when
they joined battle, the horses no sooner smelt and
saw the camels than they turned tail and destroyed
the hopes of Cro2sus.

Even, now, at Pisa, it is found necessary to
reconcile the horses to the sight of the camels in
order to prevent accidents ; and where the pre-
cautions of such training have not been adopted,
the sudden and dangerous terror with which a horse
is seized on coming unexpectedly upon one of
them is excessive.

The madness alluded to by Pliny probably re-
fers to the violence of the male at certain seasons,,
when a portion of the velum palati is protruded
with a strange and loud noise. Cupid makes
many of his votaries play as strange love-pranks
as ever the crazy Don performed ; but when he
bestrides a camel, he makes the impassioned brute
absolutely rabid.

Advantage is taken of this state of excitement
by the turbaned Turk ; and two rivals are pitted,
who at once rush at each other, and a regular
combat follows. Before they are let go they are
muzzled after a fashion, so that no deadly injury
can ensue. Then they turn to like Cornish wrest-
lers, standing on their own hind legs, embracing'
each other with their anterior extremities, twist-
ing their necks together and each striving to over-
throw his adversary. Fired at the sight, the
Turk loses his staid and apathetic demeanor. He
claps his hands, and shouts out the name of the
favorite which he has backed with an energy wor-
thy of Hockley Hole and Marylebone in the old
time, before modern statutes had prohibited the
brutalizing dog-fights, bull and badger baits, which,
in other days, formed the amusement of the high
and low vulgar. A vestige of the old English
spirit still lingers, and snatches of ancient songs

79.

38

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

commemorative of the departed rugging and
riving era may yet be heard in triviis*

Mr. Macfarlane saw one of these got-up camel-
fights at a Turkish wedding in a village near
Smyrna, and again at a festival at Magnesia. But
he once, in the neighborhood of Smyrna, saw a
fight of a more serious character. Two huge
camels broke away from the string, and set to in
spite of their drivers. They bit each other like
furies, and the devidjis,f to whom in general these
animals are most obedient and even affectionate,
had the greatest difficulty in separating the enraged
rivals.

On the Roman arena the camel was seen com-
paratively late, either as a mere spectacle or in a
ruck with other beasts, and there is some founda-
tion for the belief that camels appeared in the
circus drawing chariots four-in-hand ; not as we
•drive, but all four in the same line, yoked togeth-
.er abreast.

Ptolemy evinced his respect for the human race
!by showing together two novelties in the Egyptian
theatre, namely, a black camel and a parti-colored
man, the latter being half white and half black.

Without stopping to inquire about the dimen-
sions of* the table of that mighty monarch, who,
according to some retailers of wonders, had a
whole camel served to his robust guests, or
whether the said thaumaturgists had not misread
a passage which set forth how the entertainer, in
his royal magnificence, had sent away the guests,
after a feast worthy of Lucullus himself, enriched
with golden crowns, massive silver vases, slaves,
and a camel each, we may be content with know-
ing that the milk and flesh of the animal are said
to be as welcome to the Arab as those of the
reindeer to the Laplander ; and as there is too
frequently but one step between the pleasures of
the table and the prescription of the physician, let
us see what the ancient pharmacopoeia owed to
the camel : —

His braine (by report) is excellent good against
the epilepsie or falling sicknesse, if it be dried and
drunk with vinegar : so doth the gall likewise taken
in drinke with hony : which also is a good medi-
cine for the squinancy.J

In cases of obstinate alvine obstruction a dried
camel's tail was held to be infallible. The drop-
pings " reduced into ashes and incorporate with
oile, doth curie and frizzle the haire of the head."
This may have been among Antony's cosmetics : —
" The said ashes made into a liniment and so
applied, yea, and taken in drink, as much as a
man may comprehend with three fingers, careth

* For instance, an itinerant melodist was regaling the
«ars of his audience the other evening with a racy com-
position, which included the following stave : —

As for sentiment, and that 'ere stuff,

It 'a a thin; I can't abide ;
Give me a jolly butcher with his apron on,

And his bull-hitch by his side.

The song was altogether suggestive of the owner of a
pair of boots which Edwin Landseer has immortalized in
his incomparable " Low Life."

t Camel-drivers. t Holland's Pliny.

the falling sicknesse ;" and, no doubt, " Great
Julius" took it. " The haire of their tails twisted
into a wreath or cord, and so worn about the
left arme in the manner of a bracelet, cureth
the quartan ague ;" and if Caius Ligarius had
worn such an antidote, he might not have suffered
so much from

That same ague which had made him lean.

The antipathy between the horse and the came!
no longer exists in the East, where their associa-
tion has so long and so continually been effected.
For many centuries the camel has been the great
transporting power, where no other vehicle could
have answered the purpose. Old chronicles record
that the three Magian kings came mounted on
swift dromedaries to the adoration of " the heav'n-
born child;" and the slower race have long
formed the great medium of commercial inter-
course. As a shepherd knows his sheep, so do
the devidjis or camel-drivers distinguish their
camels, and they talk of their points as a jockey
speaks of those of a favorite horse ; nay. a Be-
douin knows the print 'of his own camel's foot,
and will thus track it when it has wandered.
Nothing can be more orderly than the progress
of the caravans. The camel moves like clock-
work ; and the caravans or strings of camels are.
Mr. Macfarlane tells us, always headed by a little
ass, on which the driver sometimes rides, and
which has a tinkling bell round its neck. Each
camel, he adds, is commonly furnished with a
large, rude, but soft and pastoral-sounding bell,
suspended to the front of the pack or saddle. If
these bells be removed by accident or design, the
camels, like the mules of Spain and Italy, will
come to a dead stop ; and Mr. Macfarlane adds,
that like the mules also, the camels always go
best in a long line, one after the other. He tried
the experiment of the bell at Pergamos. Two
stately camels, the foremost furnished with the
bell, were trudging along the road with measured
steps. The bell was detached with a long stick.
The camels halted, nor could they be urged for-
ward till their ears were regaled with the well-
known music. Mr. Macfarlane observes, that he
uses the word " measured," not as a matter of
poetry, but of fact ; and he states that their step is
so measured and like clockwork, that on a plain
you know almost to a yard the distance they will
go in a given time. In the flat valleys of the
Hermus and Caicus he made calculations with a
watch in his hand, and found, hour after hour, an
unvarying result, the end of their journey being
performed just at the same pace, three miles an
hour, as the beginning. The camel is, indeed,
the creature of order and regularity.. Each has
his prace in the line ; and if this be interfered
with, the beasts become disorderly and will not
march. " Each gets attached to a particular
camel of the caravan, prefers seeing his tail before
him to that of any other, and will not go if you
displace his friend."

Bwt the Egyptians do not move in single file ;

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

39

they, on the contrary, march with a wide-extended
front. Caravans from Bagdad to Aleppo and Da-
mascus have heen said to consist of camels march-
ing abreast of each other, and sometimes extend-
ing over a space of more than a mile.

Old authors notice the training of camels to
move in measured time by placing the animal on
gradually heated plates, and at the same time
sounding a musical instrument. The carriage of
the head, so frequent a theme of eulogy with the
Arabian poets, is due to the atlas, which, besides
its articulation with the occipital condyles, affords
support to the lower jaw. The Arabs, who have
among them most imaginative and finished impro-
visator^ compare the elegant movements of a beau-
tiful bride to those of a young camel. The
Thousand and One Nights, like most clever fables,
have some foundation in fact, as is well known to
the friends of the Arabian man of rank, who keeps
his professed story-teller as an indispensable part
of his establishment. African travellers relate
that these friends will assemble before his tent, or
on the platform with which the house of a Moorish
Arab is roofed, and there listen, night after night,
to a consecutive history, related for sixty or even
one hundred nights in succession. The listeners
on such occasions have all the air of being spell-
bound, especially while hearing some of their
native songs, which are frequently extemporized,
full of fire, and appealing with irresistible force
.to the passions. "I have seen," says Major
Denham, " a circle of Arabs straining their eyes
with a fixed attention at one moment and bursting
with loud laughter ; at the next melting into tears
and clasping their hands in all the ecstasy of
grief and sympathy." The good camel-driver
frequently cheers his beast with one of these mel-
odies, and divides his barley-cake with those

Mute companions of his toils, that hear
In all his griefs a more than equal share.
There, where no springs in summers die away,
Or moss-crowned fountains mitigate the day.

But sometimes the poor slave suffers dreadfully
i'rom the zealous ignorance of those who have the
care of him. The attention of Bishop Heber,
when on his journey to Cawnpoor, was attracted
by the dreadful groans of one of the baggage-
camels. He went to the spot, and found that two
of the camel-drivers had bound its legs in a kneel-
ing posture, so that it could not stir, and were
burning it with hot irons in all the fleshy and
cartilaginous parts of its body. The good bishop
inquired what they were doing, and was answered
that the camel had a fever and wind, and would
die if they did not so treat it ; and die it did,
after all, secundum artem. Our French neighbors
love to be systematic, and thus classify the helpers
of men : Le medecin qui guerit — he is very rare ;
Le medecin qui attend la guerison — much more
Common, but still comparatively rare ; and Le
widecin qui tue. The camel-doctors appear to
iiave belonged to the last and most numerous class,
hough the treatment seems to have been somewhat
imilar to that practised on Rodin, for cholera, with

success. Immersion in water seems to be most
injurious to the camel ; and after being compelled
to pass through rivers, disease frequently super-
venes. It also appears to be liable to intoxication
without drinking stimulating liquors. " Several
of our camels," says Dr. Oudney, " are drunk
to-day. Their eyes are heavy, and want anima-
tion ; gait staggering, and every now and then
falling as a man in a state of intoxication." This
arose, according to the doctor, from eating dates
after drinking water ; and he accounts for the
effect on the animal by the probable passing of the
fruit into the spirituous fermentation in its stomach
— that wonderful stomach, which contains a series
of reservoirs to enable the desert ship to pursue
its voyage over the trackless and arid sands.
Yes, it is so. Doubts have been entertained upon
the authority of a celebrated name, for it has been
stated by a distinguished comparative anatomist*
that John Hunter did not give credit to this asser-
tion. But upon looking to the source — and, as
Dr. Johnson said of conversation, it is of primary
consequence in appreciating information to ascer-
tain whether it comes from a spring or a reservoir
— we find that Dr. Patrick Russell, the writer on
whom Sir Everard depended for this contradiction
of a generally received notion, states in the appen-
dix to his brother's History of Aleppo, that water,
in cases of distress, is taken from the camel's
stomach, and that it is a fact neither doubted in
Syria nor considered strange. The doctor con-
fesses that he never was himself in a caravan re-
duced to such an expedient, but he adds that he
has no reason to distrust the report of others, par-
ticularly of the Arabs ; and he refers to the his-
torian Beidawi, who, in relating' the prophet's
expedition to Tabuc against the Greeks, observes
that, among other miseries of the army, the bel-
ligerents were reduced to the extremity of slaying
their camels to quench their thirst with the water
contained in those animated water-skins. But fur-
ther, the doctor records that on his return from
the East Indies, in 1789, having heard accidentally
that his friend Mr. John Hunter had dissected a
camel, and was supposed to have expressed an
opinion that the animal's power of preserving
water in its stomach was rather improbable, he
took an opportunity of conversing with that illus-
trious physiologist on the subject, when, he says,
to the best of his recollection, John Hunter told
him that he by no means drew any such absolute
inference from his dissection ; that he saw no
reason for assigning more than four stomachs to
the camel, though he could conceive that water
might be found in the paunch little impregnated
with the dry provender of the desert, and readily
separating or draining from it. The doctor then
goes into anatomical detail, and those who wish to
follow him have only to go to the Museum of the
College of Surgeons of London — the great John
Hunter's great monument — where they will find
the reticulum, or water bag of the camel, with

* Sir Everard Home.

40

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

such an explanation as a catalogue proceeding
from the pen of Professor Owen only could give.

Then, if we want extrinsic evidence, we have
only to call one of the most truthful, amiable wit-
nesses, that ever left friends to lament him. Cap-
tain Lyon, upon the occasion of a death of one of
these animals, says, in his most interesting narra-
tive,—

I never before had an opportunity of observing
how water is procured from the belly of a cameHo
satisfy the thirst of an almost perishing kaffle.*
It is the false stomach which contains the water
and undigested food. This is strained through a
cloth and then drank; and from those who have
been under the necessity of making use of the
beverage I learn that the taste is bitter. As the
animal had recently drank, its stomach was nearly
full.

The sailor, whose love of adventure had induced
him to make a land voyage, and who suffered ac-
cordingly, (for, though full of resources, he must
have been very much like a fish out of water — a
salmon on a gravel walk, for instance,) amused
himself by making observations on the skin and
skeleton of the defunct ; and which way do you
think his thoughts went ? Naturam expelles, &c. ;
but you may be sure of the recurrence ; why, in
planning a boat out of the remains. He found
that a most excellent contrivance might be made
from them for the purpose of crossing rivers, the
back-bone being used as the keel and the ribs as
timbers. The formation of the chest of the camel
struck him as being like nothing so much as the
prow of a Portuguese bean-cod, or fishing-boat ;*
and, with the frankness of a sailor, he adds, that it
was in consequence of hearing the Arabs always
calling it " markab," or ship, that the idea first
occurred to him.

Ship, indeed ; never was metaphor more true

Launched upon the sandy ocean, where the com

pass is not unfrequently used, the camel fleet pur

sues its voyage until it reaches its anchoring

ground for the night in some brake well known t

the devidjis, making commerce easy between

nations, to whom the desert would otherwise be

an unconquerable bar, or smooths the dreary wa;

from Damascus to Mecca for the Mahometan pil

grim. The camel of the caravans which trade

between Cairo and the interior to spots still i

blank on the map of the European geographe

becomes a slave-ship. When one of these slave

caravans reaches the open country, the miserabl

slave has to undergo the horrors of a sort of mi<i

die-passage in the desert, though his treatment

terrible as it is, is mild when compared with th

agonies of the hold. He is made fast to a Ion

pole, one end of which is tied to a camel's saddle

and the other, which is forked, is passed on eac

side of his neck and tied 'behind with strong core

so as to render it impossible for him to get hi

head out ; his right hand is fastened to the pol

at a short distance from his head. Thus, wit

* Caravan.

t Phasplus ille quern videtis hospites.— CATULLUS.

is legs and left arm at liberty, the slave is, as it
were, taken in tow by the camel, behind which he
arches all day long, and is cast off" at night only
o be put in irons.

The hadj, or pilgrim-caravan, pursues its route
rincipally by night, and by torch-light. Moving
bout four o'clock in the afternoon, it travels
ithout stopping till an hour or two after the sun
s above the horizon. The extent and luxury of
lese pilgrimages, in ancient times especially,
Imost exceed belief. Haroun, of Arabian Nights'
elebrity, performed the pilgrimage no less than
ine times, and with a grandeur becoming the
ommander of the faithful. The caravan of the
mother of the last of the Abassides numbered one
mndred and twenty thousand camels. Nine hun-
red camels were employed merely in bearing the
wardrobe of one of the caliphs, and others carried
now with them to cool their sherbert. Nor was
Bagdad alone celebrated for such pomp and luxury
n fulfilling the directions of the Koran. The
•ultan of Egypt, on one occasion, was accompanied
>y five hundred camels, whose luscious burdens
insisted of sweetmeats and confectionery only ;
while two hundred and eighty were entirely laden
with pomegranates and other fruits. The itiner-
ant larder of this potentate contained one thousand
eese and three thousand fowls. Even so late as
sixty years since, the pilgrim-caravan from Cairo
was six hours in passing one who saw the pro-
:ession.

The departure of such an array, with its thou-
sands of camels glittering in every variety of trap-
pings, some with two brass field-pieces each,
others with bells and streamers — others, again,
with kettle-drummers, others covered with purple
velvet, with men walking by their sides playing
on flutes and flageolets — some glittering with
neck ornaments and silver-studded bridles, varie-
gated with colored beads, and with nodding plumes
of ostrich-feathers on their foreheads — to say
nothing of the noble, gigantic, sacred camel,
decked with cloth of gold and silk, his bridle
studded with jewels and gold, led by two sheiks
in green, with the ark or chapel containing the
Koran written in letters of gold — forms a dazzling
contrast to the spectacle it not unfrequently pre-
sents before its mission is fulfilled. Numbers of
these gayly-caparisoned creatures drop and die
miserably, and when the pilgrimage leaves Mecca
the air is too often tainted with the effluvia reeking
from the bodies of the camels that have sunk under
the exhausting fatigue of the march. After he
had passed the Akaba, near the head of the Red
Sea, the whitened bones of the dead camels were
the land-marks which guided the pilgrim through
the sand-wastes, as he was led on by the alter-
nate hope and disappointment of the mirage, or

" serab," as the Arabs term it. Burckhardt
describes this phenomenon as seen by him when
they were surrounded during a whole day's march
by phantom lakes. The color was of the purest
azure — so clear, that the shadows of the mountains
which bordered the horizon were reflected with

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

41

extreme precision ; and the delusion of its being
a sheet of water was thus rendered perfect. He
had often seen the mirage in Syria and Egypt ;
there he always -found it of a whitish color, like
morning mist, seldom lying steadily on the plain,
almost continually vibrating ; but in the case above
described the appearance was very different, and
bore the most complete resemblance to water.
This exact similitude the traveller attributes to
the great dryness of the air and earth in the desert
where he beheld it. There, too, the appearance
of water approached much nearer than in Syria
and Egypt, being often not more than two hundred
paces from the beholders, whereas he had never
seen it before at a distance of less than half-a-mile.
Will it be believed that some zoologists (among
them we could mention a great name* — the name
of one who did glorious service in his day, but who
was too prone to attempt to put Nature in the
wrong) have endeavored to account for the con-
struction of the camel by a theory based upon the
lengthened servitude of the animal ? Now, if you
grant, as you will not if you are wise, that the
callosities of the camel were the result of an infini-
tesimal series of genuflexions, the slave-tokens of
a long submission to the tyrant man, what will
you make of the internal organization — of the cis-
terns which enable the animal to live where any
creature not so provided must perish from thirst
without artificial aid ? Here are vast sandy deserts
to be traversed before man can communicate with
man. Where is the medium of communication ?
Nature presents an animal of surpassing endurance,
capable, upon emergency, of sustaining a thirst of
ten or twelve days' duration. The head is levelled
directly forward, and lighted by eyes that can look

*Buffon.

onward, and in some degree backward, but which
are protected from the downward stroke of the sun
by an overhanging orbit which prevents the camel
from looking upward. The nostrils are so formed
that the animal has only to make the muscles do
their duty to shut them against the sand-storm of
the simoon. From the sole of the elastic foot to
the crown of the well-balanced head the camel ex-
ternally is formed for the destiny which it has to
fulfil ; and its internal structure is pregnant with
proofs of its adaptation to its own wants as well as
the wants of man on that particular portion of the
earth where it is most vigorous ; if it be taken
thence and transplanted to other localities, it does
its duty after a fashion, but the breed dwindles.

The geologist well knows that the disposition
of the strata, after all the convulsions and disrup-
tions they have undergone, is precisely that which
presents the most accommodating surface to man.
If they had remained as they were at first deposited,
where would he have found that mineral wealth
which is the great source of civilization ? It is
quite true that this very mineral wealth is enabling
him to supersede the animal of which we have
been treating, perhaps at too great length. The
steam-power — Darwin was a great and true
prophet* — may leave the camel far behind, even in
the desert ; but no sound physiologist can contem-
plate the creature without seeing in it an over-
whelming manifestation of the wisdom of the
Creator.

* Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar,
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car.

This is fulfilled. Who shall say that the rest of the
prophecy may not come to passl

Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the fields of air.

42

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

PART VII.

THE hen which was induced, good easy Dam
Partlet, to bestow her maternal affection upon a
egg of the wedge-tailed eagle, laid in the garde
of the Zoological Society, was — it will be in th
remembrance of those who amuse themselves b
looking into these simple annals — " left sitting.'
The first egg was laid on the 27th of February
in this year, and was, it will be recollected, place
under a common hen, but was removed after th
expiration of twenty-one days, in an addled state
The second egg — that on which the hen wa
left sitting at our last notice — was laid in the firs
week of March, and was removed, after a patien
incubation of twenty-two days, addled also.

On the 29th of March a third egg was produced
but it was destroyed by the parents.

April 4. — Another egg was this day laid, bu
no attempt was made to get it hatched.

The imprisoned parents made a poor apologi
for a nest of birch-broom and straw — the materials
within their reach ; but, instead of manifestin0
any intention to do the parental office, the birds
wanted to destroy every one of the eggs, and the
keeper found it necessary to look very sharp to
prevent them from carrying their ovicidal propen
sities into effect.

This reversal of the great law of nature is no.
confined to birds. The sow and the rabbit, if dis-
turbed at the critical moment, will not unfrequent-
ly devour their offspring — as those know to their
cost, whose impatience has brought their prying
eyes to look into the mystery. We forget that,
in their natural state, the first care of all verte-
brated animals is to hide their eggs or young.
The same may be said of insects, crustaceans, and
even of molluscous animals. In proportion as the
organization is developed, the sensitiveness to the
violation of this principle increases. The quad-
ruped, in a state of morbid irritation, devours its
young ; the bird forsakes its nest, or destroys the

When, however, this great operation of nature
is effected in secrecy, and the storge of the parents
is unchecked, the vertebrata, and especially the
more highly-developed classes, will risk anything
short of life for the protection of their young, and
not unfrequently will lay that down in defence of
their offspring.

In cases of extreme urgency, gregarious quad-
rupeds dispose of their young with the most pa-
rental care, placing them in the middle, so that
when the battle rages they may have the best
chance of safety. Thus, by the divine law, pres-
ervation follows generation, and is most conspic-
uously manifested while the offspring is of tender
age, and unable to provide for its own support.
Among the mammiferous animals, a reciprocity of
benefits is established, and it may be doubted
whether the mother or the child feels the greatest
enjoyment in imparting or receiving the full tide
of maternal nourishment. Even that grand in-

carnate fiend, Lady Macbeth, is compelled to
say — ,

I have given sucke, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milkes me.*

Moreover, a sort of instinctive distributive justice
is established in the breast of the mother, when
the case requires it. Thus, as a general rule, it
will be found that an ewe which brings forth two
lambs at a time, will not admit one to her teats
unless the other be present and partaking ; other-
wise one might famish, while the other would
grow fat.

This manifestation, for the most part, suits the
tyrant man, and therefore, in all convenient cases,
he very blandly suffers nature to take her course.
The Laplander cannot afford to be so benevolent.
The female reindeer drops her fawn about the
middle of May, and gives milk from the end of
June to the middle of October. Now few moth-
ers are more extremely fond of their young than
these does. If they lose one, they seek it every-
where, and, if it be to be found, never rest till
they have discovered it, The Laplander, there-
fore, knows better than to separate the doe from
the fawn. Morning and evening the herd is
brought up to be milked. A rope, both ends of
which are held in the hand of the assistant, is cast
over the neck of the doe, and she is thus com-
pelled to submit, giving about a pint. This might
seem to be a sufficient fraud upon the poor fawn,
>ut no. As soon as the pint is abstracted, the
teats of the doe are anointed with a preparation
most offensive to the fawn, which thus, notwith-
standing its intense disgust, gets just enough to
reserve life, and no more, and leaves the poor
mother with a comparatively full udder to enrich
he dairy of her honest master.

All animals of a high grade show the greatest
distress if their young are taken from them, and
will, if necessary, fight stoutly in their defence.
rn that most revolting case of the vivisection of a
>oor bitch, she endeavored to lick her puppies in
he midst of her tortures, and when they were
emoved, uttered the most plaintive cries.

The crew of the discovery-ship Carcass, sent
ti an exploring voyage to the North Pole, in the
ast century, witnessed a most touching instance
f maternal affection, which seems, however, to
ave had no effect on the hearts of some of those
who beheld it.

The ship was locked in the ice, and, early one
morning, the man at the mast-head gave notice
lat three bears were approaching over the frozen
ea, invited, doubtless, by the scent of some blub-
er of a walrus, killed by the crew a few days
efore, which had been set on fire, and was burn-
ng on the ice. The visitors proved to be a she-
car and her two cubs, the latter nearly as large
s the dam. They ran eagerly to the fire, drew
way part of the flesh of the walrus that remained
nconsumed, and devoured it. Then the crew

* Folio.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

from the ship cast great lumps of walrus-flesh,
which still remained, to them. These the old
bear fetched away one by one, laying every lump
before her cubs, dividing it into shares, and re-
serving only a small portion for herself. As the
unsuspecting mother was fetching away the last
piece, the men levelled their muskets at the cubs
and shot them both dead. They then wounded
the dam, but not mortally. The rest must be
told in the words of the relater : —

It would have drawn tears of pity from any but
unfeeling minds, to have marked the affectionate
concern expressed by this poor beast in the dying
moments of her expiring young. Though she was
sorely wounded, and could but just crawl to the
place where they lay, she carried the lump of flesh
she had fetched away, as she had done others be-
fore, tore it in pieces and laid it down before them ;
and when she saw that they refused to eat, she laid
her paws first upon one, and then upon the other,
and endeavored to raise them up ; all this while it
was pitiful to hear her moan. When she found she
could not stir them, she went off, and when she
had got at some distance, looked back and moaned ;
and that not availing her to entice them away, she
returned, and, smelling round them, began to lick
their wounds. She went off a second time as be-
fore ; and having crawled a few paces, looked
again behind her, and for some time stood moaning.
But still her cubs not rising to follow her, she
returned to them again, and with signs of inexpres-
sible fondness went round one, and round the other,
pawing them and moaning. Finding at last that they
were cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards
the ship and growled a curse upon the murderers,
which they returned with a volley of musket-balls.
She fell between her cubs, and died licking their
wounds.*

Birds, at other times the most timid of creatures,
will boldly attack the spoiler of their nests and
young. Thrushes, and even smaller birds, have
been known to do battle with magpies, jays, crows,
hawks, nest-robbing school-boys, and even men.
The common hen will show fight to kites, dogs,
cats, and unfeathered bipeds, if they come near their
chickens with sinister intentions, or even if they
approach too closely. White, in his delightful
book, mentions an instance of the- fury with which
some plundered hens wreaked their vengeance
upon a reiver, when, afier repeated predatory acts,
they had him in their power. He relates that a
neighboring gentleman, one summer, had lost
most of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that
came gliding down between a fagot-pile and the
end of his house to the place where the coops
stood. The owner, vexed to see his flock dimin-
ishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the
pile and the house, into which the caitiff dashed
and was caught : —

Resentment (continues the historian of Selborne)
suggested the law of retaliation ; he therefore clip-
ped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and, fixing
a cork on his bill, threw him down among the
brood-hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene
that ensued ; the expressions that fear, rage and
revenge inspired were new, or at least such as had
* Annual Register, 1775, signed "Marinus."

been unnoticed before. The exasperated matron*
upbraided, they execrated, they insulted, they
triumphed. In a word, they never desisted from
buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in.
a hundred pieces.

Ready and willing, however, as the parents are
to defend their young against fearful odds, that
modification of reason, which I have observed fre-
quently to accompany mere instinct, operates oc-
casionally to induce them to acquiesce patiently
when help is required and given.

Every one has heard of partridges falling into
cracks ; and many have looked upon these " acci-
dents" as inventions of John to account for the
absence of eggs and birds which have found their
way to distant parts per rail. But that such mis-
fortunes do really happen there can be no doubt.

In a clayey country, in Somersetshire, where
the cracks, one hot summer, had become danger-
ous, even for dogs, two old birds were seen one
fine morning in June, " in great trouble." Upon
looking about near the spot where they had been
disturbed, a huge crack was seen to yawn, which,
though not quite so big as the gulf into which
Vathek tumbled the fair boys whom he offered to
the insatiate Giaour, was all-sufficient for the pur-
pose of swallowing up young partridges. The old
birds had been scratching about the edge of the
crack, where " they had done more harm than
good." Upon looking in, a dozen young one*
were seen down in the crack. They were hooked
out, one by one, with a stick, and the parents
stood, " not more than a pole off," anxiously
watching the operation, and receiving each of their
offspring as it ran from the edge.

A hen, which was most pugnacious, flying
fiercely at every one who came near her chickens,
had wandered with her brood near a fagot-pilor
into which they had scrambled, and had contrived
so to entangle themselves that they could not get
out. The piercing cries of the bewildered chick*
were equalled by the fidgety clucks and gestures
of the mother. But when assistance came, in-
stead of buffeting the helper, she stood patiently
waiting till, after taking off some of the fagots,
he caught her chickens and restored them to her.

A mare brought forth a foal some eight or ten
days before its time. The foal was attacked with
spasms in the stomach and bowels, and, as it gen-
erally happens in cases of premature birth among
horses, died. Every aid that could be thought of
was given ; medicines were administered, and the
mare stood quietly watching the helpers, as if
conscious of the need of its offspring, as long a»
the foal was in her sight ; but the moment it was-
removed she became violent.

White mentions the case of an old hunting-
mare, which ran on the common, and which,
being taken very ill, came down into the village,
as it were to implore the help of men, and died
the night following in the street.

It is a common and not very considerate prac-
tice to put duck's eggs under a broody hen : and
it must be confessed that, generally speaking, a

44

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

more numerous and healthy lot of ducklings are
hatched, than when the domestic duck herself sits
upon them. For she is apt to be fidgety, and —
haunted, perhaps, by some notions of her origi-
nal free state, and of the fresh nest amid the frogs,
and herbage of the river-side — frequently will not
sit close in confinement. But no bird sits closer
or better than the common wild duck, or brings
out more numerous and vigorous young. Nor
are there wanting instances, especially about mills
and farms near some running stream or lake, of
the domestic duck sitting as close and unweariedly
as the most persevering hen. In many home-
steads, however, which are distant from rivers or
brooks, the terrestrial foster-mother is preferred ;
and when the young ones are hatched, the moment
they see the pond, in they all go, to the unspeak-
able distress of the hen, which remains clucking
and crying on the edge, using every call and ges-
ture in her power to rescue them from the de-
struction which she thinks must be their portion :
nay, the distracted parent will in her agony some-
times actually take water, at the risk of her own life,
to preserve, as she thinks, theirs. All this time
the ducklings are swimming about with the utmost
complacency, catching flies and amusing themselves
in the element to which their unaided instinct has
led them, in spite of the indignant remonstrances
of their foster-mother, and the obstacles which she
opposes to their indomitable will.

It was thought advisable in our poultry-yard to
adopt the plan of raising ducklings under a hen ;
but, in order to lessen the amount of suffering,
one particular hen was selected for this office as
long as she was fitted for the purpose of incuba-
tion. The first year was, of course, a sore trial ;
but experience, and that modification of reason to
which I have above alluded, had their effect ; and,
in the subsequent years, she would lead her pal-
mipede brood to the water, calmly see them launch
out on its surface, and remain quietly dusting her-
self on the dry, sunny bank, with the utmost un-
concern. She was a buff-colored hen, of the
Dorking breed, and more than once brought out
two broods of ducklings in the same year.

Birds, in a domesticated or semi-domesticated
state, like other parents of a higher grade, appear
to derive pleasure from exhibiting their hopeful
offspring so as to attract observation and admiration.

On the 10th of April last, in an early walk
through St. James' Park, I saw on the gravel by
the water's edge, on the south side, two black
swans, which had brought over their two newly-
hatched, gray, downy powder-puffs of nestlings,
with black bills and feet, from the island where
they had first seen the light, as if to show them
in their pride to the passers-by, of whom a little
crowd had collected round them, apparently to the
great satisfaction of the parents. To be sure,
they had the lake to retreat to, if any danger had
threatened. After standing to be admired a short
time, the whole party again took water and
rowed over to their island. In the afternoon,
between five and six, I saw the old birds close to

the bank, but without their young ones. They
had hatched three; but the "gander," as the
keeper somewhat irreverently called the male
swan, trod on one in the nest, and killed it. I
say " irreverently," for, as among barn-door fowls,
we have a cock and a hen, we have, among swans,
a cob and a pen.

April 22. — A friend told me on Saturday that
he had seen a Swallow in Kent on the 18th. I
looked out to-day over the water in St. James'
Park, but saw none ; and I was in the Regent's
Park yesterday without meeting with a single hi-
rundo of any species. My friends, the black
swans, have contrived to kill another cygnet, with
their great splay feet, probably, and now go about
with one only. Very proud 'of it they seem to be.
By the way, it appears that the Canada geese,*
the ganders especially, are most destructive to the
nestlings of other birds during the breeding season.
The gander will not suffer anything to live, if it
can help it, in the neighborhood of its nest. Duck-
lings, goslings, cygnets, all fall before its violence.
A pair are sitting in the park, and the gander an-
nihilates every young bird of any other species
that appears on his domain, and comes within his
power. Great fears are now entertained for a fine
brood of fourteen young wild-ducks just hatched in
his vicinity.

When this meets the eye of those who read
such trifles, nidification may be considered, with
few exceptions, as being over for this year. How
varied are the nests, from the merest rough col-
lection of straw and litter to the elegant elaborate
little domicile now before me ! —

What nice hand,

With twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Will make me such another?

It is the work of a goldfinch ; a labor of love
executed in secret. How carefully constructed,
with what an eye to the color of surrounding ob-
jects, so that there may be the least risk of dis-
covery !

The expedients to which small birds have re-
course to thwart detection when they are conscious
that they are surprised in the act of bearing mate-
rials for making their nests, or conveying food to
their young, are amusing.

On Easter Sunday, as I was passing along the
foot-way that borders the National Gallery —
(thank Punch and The Times, the Vernon collec-
tion is at last to be disinterred from the vault to
which a grateful government had consigned it) —
I saw a sparrow fly down to the neighboring
hackney-carriage-stand, and pick lip a very long
straw, with which it flew, with some labor, to-
wards the building. The long, streaming straw,
attracted the attention of some of the pedestrians,
who stopped and looked at the loaded little bird,
which was directing its flight towards the portico
of the gallery ; but finding its motions watched, it
turned short round and pitched with its straw on
one of the window-sills, and the people then passed
on. Presently it flew again towards the portico ;

* Anscr Canadensis ; L'Oie d cravate of the French.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

45

but the people again stopping and looking — for if
one passenger stops and looks up in a great Lon-
don thoroughfare, you have in a very few moments
an increasing crowd — it flew back to another win-
dow ; and the second lot of gazers went their
way. The little bird then started again with its
straw towards one of the same pillars, and, cutting
round it, so as to avoid prying eyes as much as
possible, bore it to the capital of one of the pilas-
ters and disappeared, straw and all, into the snug
nook, made by a part of the projecting ornament,
which it had chosen as the place for making its
nest. The wary bird was not disposed to let an
inquisitive public know the way to its home. On
many other occasions I have observed these and
other birds remain, waiting about for a long time
with nest-materials and food in their bills when
they have perceived that I was watching them ;
but the moment I turned my head they were off
with their burden to the nest. This would not be
worth mentioning, were it not so difficult to find
persons who will use their eyes to some purpose.

The careful preparation and anxious conceal-
ment manifested by the generality of birds in the
process of nidification can only be equalled by the
ardor of the consequent incubation. But there is
no rule without an exception, as we shall presently
see.

In the Book of Job* we find mention made of
the ostrich : —

Which leaveth his egges in the earth and maketh
them hole in the dust,

And forgetteth that the foote might scatter them,
or that the wilde beast might brake them.

Hee sheweth himselfe cruell unto his yong ones
as they were not his, and is without feare, as if he
travailed in vaine.

For God hath deprived him of Wisedome, and
hath given him no part of understanding.

The following note is appended to v. 17 : —

They write that the ostrich covereth her egges
in the sand, and because the countrey is hote, and
the sun still keepeth them warme, they are hatched.

The masculine gender is used in the text, and
we know that in a kindred genus, the emeu, or
New Holland cassowary ,| the eggs are hatched
by the male. But there can be no doubt that os-
triches incubate, though during the heat of the
day the parent birds may leave them to the high
temperature of the climate in order to avoid a de-
gree which might be fatal to the vitality of the
eggs. Captain Lyon states that all the Arabs agree
respecting the manner in which these birds sit on
their eggs. They are not, he says, left to be
hatched by the warmth of the sun, but the parent
bird forms a rough nest, in which she covers from
fourteen to eighteen eggs, and regularly sits on
them in the same manner as the common fowl does
on her chickens-; the male occasionally relieving
the female. It is during the breeding season, he
adds, that the greatest numbers are procured, the
Arabs shooting the old ones while on their nests.

* Chap, xxxix. v. 17, etseq.; Barker's Bible, 1613.
t Dromaius Novcc Hollandice.

By the way, Captain Lyon remarks, that at all the
three towns, Sockna, Hoon, and Wadan, it is the
custom to keep tame ostriches in a stable, and in
two years to take three cuttings of their feathers.
He imagined from what he saw of the skins of
ostriches brought for sale, that all the fine feathers
sent to Europe are from tame birds ; the wild
ones being generally so ragged and torn, that not
above half-a-dozen good perfect ones can be found.
The white feathers are what Captain Lyon alludes
to ; the black ones, being shorter and more flexi-
ble, are generally good.

Various statements have been made as to the
number of eggs, and from eight to ten have been
mentioned as found together. The latter is the
number assigned by Le Vaillant to a single fe-
male. But he disturbed one from a nest contain-
ing thirty eggs, surrounded by thirteen others.
He watched this nest, and observed four females
in succession sit upon them during the day. —
This appears to have been a sort of nest in co-
partnership, such as turkeys and other incubating
birds that make their nests upon the ground
will sometimes enter into.* The nest of the os-
trich appears to be nothing more than a pit of sand
some three feet in diameter, the sand being thrown
up so as to form a raised edge around it.

From this modified and somewhat loose degree
of incubation we pass to the exception to the gen-
aral rule to which we have above alluded.

The visitors to the garden of the Zoological
Society of London, in the Regent's Park, may see
a plain-looking, sombre bird, with a considerable
share of tail, of a size between a common fowl
and a curassow,f walking and picking about as if
it were looking for something it ought to find but
cannot. It is, at present, in the great aviary on
the south side, on the right after entering the gate
from the road. This is the brush turkey % of the
colonists of New Holland, the iveelah of the abo-
rigines of the Namoi. If any one should inform
an unitiated visitor that the bird before him never\
sits upon its eggs, but plants them in a hotbed, as

* In the county of Somerset the mowers found, near an
outlying barn where poultry were in the habit of picking
about, a partridge's nest, with several unhatched part-
ridge's eggs and the shells of three eggs of the common
hen, with all the appearances indicative of their having
contained chickens. Afterwards, when they were cutting
wheat, a brace of partridges and three common chickens
got up and flew off ; but the chickens could not keep up
with the partridges and were caught by the mowers.
These were evidently the produce of the hen's eggs, which
must have been laid by the hen in the nest of the partridge,
the hen having been attracted most probably by the sight
of the partridge's eggs. Now it is well known that the
incubation of a partridge is of longer duration than that of
a hen. When, therefore, the common hen's eggs were
hatched, the hen partridge must have hurried to the con-
clusion that the rest of the eggs (her own) were bad, and
that it was of no use to waste further time upon them ;
whereupon she went away with her foster-chickens,
leaving her own eggs to their fate.

Here we have an instance of misled instinct. Nor is
the facility with which the chickens appear to have ac-
commodated themselves to the wild habits of their foster-
parents, so far as their powers would permit, uninstruct-
ive. They were in a fair way of returning to savage life ;
and, if a similar accident had happened in an uninhabited
or uncultivated country, who shall say what results might
have sprung from the connexion.

t Crax. t TalegaUa Lathami (Gould.)

46

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

a man might plant cucumber and melon seeds, he
would he taken for the most notorious fabulist
since the days of Bidpai. If he should enlighten
the neophyte further, and instruct him that the
birds collect the materials for this hotbed them-
selves, and bide their time till the fermentation
has reached the proper point, till, like the patent
incubator, it is fit for hatching the eggs, he would
stand a very good chance of being set down as a
member of the great family of Munchausen, of
adventurous and marvellous memory. But nothing
is more true.

The brush turkey belongs to a family of birds —
or, if you wish to be hypercritical, learned reader,
a sub-family — which never incubate, but having
collected vegetable materials — which they know
will heat to a proper point without, like an ill-
saved hayrick, bursting out into combustion, or
getting up into a sullen baking point, which would
be equally destructive of the vital principle — leave
their eggs to the genial warmth of this half-nat-
ural, half-artificial mother.

The genera of this family at present known are
Talegalla, Leipoa, and Megapodius, all inhabitants
of that marvellous country which seems to be a
remnant still left to give us a notion of a very an-
cient state of this planet.

Talegalla Lathami has been in its time a sore
puzzle to systematists. More than one have made
it a vulture, and have seized upon it as such to fill
up a blank in a favorite system. It is no such
thing. If you wish to see a perfect image of the
bird, possess yourself of Mr. Gould's admirable
work on The Birds of Australia. He has the
merit of first clearing up this dark chapter in or-
.nithology, and any amusement or instruction which
may be derived from the perusal of this portion of
this paper is due to him. He is of opinion that
the natural situation of the bird is among the
rasorial forms, and that it is one of a great family
peculiar to Australia and the Indian Islands, of
which Megapodius constitutes a part ; and, in con-
, formation of his view, he notices the two deep
emarginations of the sternum, so truly character-
istic of the gallinaceous race. He is right.

The upper surface of the adult male, its wings
and tail, are of a blackish brown ; but, on the
.under surface, the feathers are blackish brown at
the base, going into silver-gray at the ends. The
skin of the head and neck is of a deep pink, verg-
ing on red, and thinly sprinkled with short hair,
like feathers of a blackish brown. His wattle is
•of a bright yellow, tinged with red where it joins
the red of the neck. His bill is black, and the
irides of his eyes and his feet are brown.

In size, the female is about a fourth less than
he male, but very similar in color, only her wat-
tle is less extensive.

Size of well-developed specimens, nearly that
of a turkey.

Now for the habits of this extraordinary feath-
ered biped.

The brush turkey is gregarious, going in small
companies, and very wary and suspicious. Like

the pheasants and some others of the gallinaceous
tribe it is a cunning runner, and often escapes
through the mazes of the brush. The native dog
is their great enemy, and when this destroyer is
upon them, and, indeed, whenever they are hard
pressed, if the opportunity offers, they all spring
upon the lowest bough of a tree, leaping from
branch to branch till they reach the top. There
they either perch or take wing to another part of
the cover. When undisturbed, they seek the
sheltering branches of trees during the heats of the
day. The sportsman knows this, and, taking ad-
vantage of their fatal siesta, knocks them over one
after the other ; for they take no warning from
the fate of their companions, remaining to be shot
at till all are bagged, or the sportsman is tired of
plying his gun.

In all this there is nothing very extraordinary,
surely ?

Certainly not, observing sir, or madam ; but
patience.

It is in the reproduction of the species that the
anomalous proceedings of the bird are manifested.
Collecting gradually a quantity of decaying vege-
tables, the bird makes a hotbed. Several weeks
are patiently employed in bringing the materials
together, till, at length, a mound, consisting of a
congeries of from two to four cart-loads, is formed.
But it must not be considered as the labor of an
individual, or of a pair, for many join in the work.
When once established, a forcing-bed of this de-
scription does duty for many years ; that is, the
same site is resorted to, and as the lower part
decomposes the birds superadd an additional sup-
ply previous to depositing their eggs.

In the construction of the most elaborate of
bird's-nests the bill is the principal instrument of
action, the feet performing a very subordinate
part in the operation. In the instance before us
the case is reversed. The foot is the agent in
collecting and depositing ; the bill is not used for
those purposes at all. The bird grasps a quantity
in its foot, throwing it backwards to the common
centre of deposit. The surface of the adjoining
ground is thus cleared for a considerable distance
so completely that hardly a leaf or blade of grass
is left. When this pyramidal vegetable mound
has had a sufficient time to heat, so as to be of the
proper temperature, the large eggs are inserted,
not side by side, as in ordinary cases, but planted
at regular distances from each other, some nine or
twelve inches apart, perfectly upright, and with
the large end downwards, each egg being buried
at nearly an arm's depth. They are then covered
up and left till they are hatched.

John Hunter found the temperature of a sitting
hen to be 104° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, and
ascertained the heat to be the same when the ball
of the instrument was placed under her. Having
taken some of the eggs from xmde'r the same hen,
when the chick was about three-parts formed, he
broke a hole in the shell, and introducing the ball
of the thermometer he found that the quicksilver
rose to 99£°. In some that were addled he found

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

47

the heat not so high by two degrees ; so that, as
he observes, the life in the living egg assisted in
some degree to support its own heat. We have
no statement of the heat of these procreant mounds
at hatching-time, but the talegalla, without any
aid but that which comes from above, knows ex-
actly the time when they have arrived at that
degree of temperature necessary for hatching the
eggs, and which, probably, closely approximates
to that whicli Hunter found to prevail in the sit-
ting hen.

Mr. Gould was credibly informed, both by na-
tives and settlers living near the haunts of these
birds, that it is not unusual to obtain nearly a
bushel of eggs at one time from a single heap,
and delicious eating they are said to be. There
seems to be some discrepancy as to the degree of
care manifested by the parents for their oviplanta-
tion, some of the natives stating that the females
are constantly in the neighborhood of the heap
about hatching-time, frequently uncovering the
eggs and covering them up again, as if for the
purpose of assisting the young birds that may have
broken their prison, whilst others informed Mr.
Gould that the eggs are merely deposited, and the
young left to force their way out without assist-
ance.

If the latter information be correct, the question
arises as to how the newly-hatched birds are sus-
tained ; and Mr. Gould observes that in all proba-
bility as Nature has adopted this mode of repro-
duction, she has also gifted the young birds with
the power of sustaining themselves from the
earliest period ; and he remarks, that the great
size of the egg would lead to this conclusion, since
in so comparatively large a space as that included
in the area of one of these eggs it is reasonable to
suppose that the bird would be much more de-
veloped than is usually found to be the case in
eggs of smaller dimensions. Mr. Gould obtained
some confirmation of this opinion ; for, in search-
ing for eggs in one of the mounds, he discovered
the remains of a young bird, apparently just ex-
cluded from the shell, but it was clothed with
feathers, not with down, as is usually the case.
The upright position of the eggs, he observes,
tends to strengthen the opinion that they are never
disturbed after they are deposited, for it is well
known that the eggs of birds which are placed
horizontally are frequently turned during incuba-
tion. This may be seen by any o'ne who will
closely watch a common sitting hen. Mr. Gould
was almost too late for the breeding season, but
he saw several of the heaps, both in the interior
and at Illawarra. They were always in the most
retired and shady glens, and on the slope of a hill,
the part above the nest being scratched clean,
while all below remained untouched, as if the
birds had found it easier to cortvey the materials
down than to throw them up. Mr. Gould found
only one perfect egg, but he saw the shells of
many from which the young had escaped in the
position above described. At Illawarra he found
them rather deposited in the light vegetable mould

than among the leaves, which were accumulated
in a considerable heap above them.

The comparatively large size of the eggs has
been alluded to. Mr. Gould describes them as
perfectly white, of a long oval form, three inches
and three-quarters long, by two inches and a half
in diameter. He saw a living specimen in the
garden of the late lamented Mr. Alexander M'Leay,
at Sydney, which had for two successive years
collected an immense mass of materials, as if it
had been in its native woods. Wherever it was
allowed to range — borders, lawn, and shrubbery —
presented an appearance that would have satisfied
the most fastidious lover of garden neatness, for
they looked as if they had been regularly swept,
from the bird having scratched everything that lay
upon the surface to add to the mound, which was
about three feet high and ten feet over. On
placing his arm in it, Mr. Gould found the heat to
be about 90° or 95° Fahr. He saw the bird,
which was a male, strutting about with proud and
majestic port, " sometimes parading round the
heap, at others perching on the top, and displaying
its brilHantly-polored neck and wattle to the greatest
advantage ; this wattle it has the power of expand-
ing and contracting at will ; at one moment it is
scarcely visible, while at another it is extremely
prominent.

Here was an instance of the uncontrollable
power of instinct. This solitary bird persever-
ingly continued to construct its mound and keep it
ready for the mate, which it was never destined to
see. It was unfortunately drowned, and then its
sex was discovered upon dissection.

Leipoa ocettata, the ngow of the aborigines of the
lowland, the ngow-oo of those of the mountain
districts of Western Australia, and the native pheas-
ant of the Western Australian colonists, is the
next form of this anomalous family that claims our
notice.

The head and crest are of a blackish-brown
hue, and a dark ashy gray pervades the neck and
shoulders. From the chin to the breast the fore-
part of the neck is covered with black lanceolate
feathers, with a white stripe down the centre
of each. Three distinct bands of grayish-white,
brown, and black, mark the back and wings, the
marks taking an ocellated form, especially on the
tips of the secondaries. The primaries are brown,
and have their outer webs pencilled with two or
three zigzag lines near their tips. The whole of
the under surface is light buff, and the tips of the
flank feathers are barred with black. The black-
ish-brown tail has a broad buff tip. The bill is
black, and the feet are blackish brown.

This species lays its eggs in a mound of sand,
about three feet in height, which both sexes have
contributed to raise, and to form which the natives
say that the birds scratch up the sand all around
for many yards. The inside of the mound pre-
sents alternate layers of dried leaves, grasses, &c, ;
among which twelve eggs, or more, are deposited,
and covered up by the birds as they are laid, till
the process is complete, when the sandy mound

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

presents the appearance of an ant's-nest. The
eggs, which are about the size of three of a com-
mon fowl, white, slightly tinged with red, are
thus left to be hatched by the heat of the sun's rays,
the vegetable materials retaining sufficient warmth
to keep them at a proper temperature during the
night ; for the eggs are deposited in layers, and
no two eggs are suffered to lie without an inter-
vening division.

The hillocks are robbed by the natives two or
three times in the course of a season, and they
conclude that the number of eggs in a mound is
many or few by the quantity of feathers scattered
about. If there be abundance of feathers it is a sign
that the hillock is full, and they immediately open
it and take the whole deposit. The hen then lays
again, and when her complement is complete is
again robbed, when she will frequently lay a third
time. In the mounds ants are often found as
numerous as in an ant-hill ; and sometimes that part
of the hillock which surrourxls the lower portion
of the eggs becomes so hard that a chisel is neces-
sary to get them out.

Captain Gray, of the 83d regiment, informed
Mr. Gould that he had never met witti these nest-
mounds except where the soil was dry and sandy,
and so thickly covered with a dwarf species of
Leptospermum as to render it almost impossible for
a traveller to force his way through if he strays
from the native paths. In those close scrubiy
woods small open glades occur occasionally, and
there he found the ngow-oo's nest, consisting of a
heap of sand, dead grass and boughs, three feet in
height, nine in diameter, and sometimes larger.

In size, this beautiful bird is less than the brush
turkey. It keeps much on the ground, seldom
taking to a tree if not closely pursued. When
hard pressed it will often run its head into a bush
and is there taken. The food, like ,that of tale-
galla, consists principally of seeds and berries, am
it utters a mournful note, very like that of a
pigeon, but more inward in sound.

But the most remarkable of this extraordinary
group is the Ooeregoorga of the aborigines of th
Coburg Peninsula, known to the colonists of For
Essington as the jungle-fowl.*

The head and crest of this great-footed bird
deep cinnamon brown, the hue of the neck and al
the under surface is dark gray. The back am
wings are cinnamon brawn, and the upper am
under tail-coverts are dark chestnut brown. Th
general color of the irides is dark brown, but i:
some individuals light reddish brown. The red
dish brown bill is bordered with yellow edges
The legs and feet bright orange, and the siz
about that of the common fowl.

When Mr. Gilbert, who assisted Mr. Gould i
collecting the materials for his grand work on th
Australian birds, arrived at Port Essington, nu
merous great mounds of earth were pointed out t
him by some of the residents — who, probably
belonged to the Society of Antiquaries — as bein

* Megapodius tumulus.

tumuli of the aborigines. The natives told
im not to listen to these wise men, and assured
im, that so far from being the burying-places of
e human biped, they were the nests in which the
gs of the ooeregoorga were hatched. No one
n the settlement believed a story that contradicted
11 the usual experiences of the incubation of
irds, and when the natives brought in some of
ic large-sized eggs in confirmation of their state-
ment, they were treated as lawyers sometimes are
;hen they try to make their case too good, and
le doubt previously entertained was strengthened,
>ut Mr. Gilbert happened to know something of

habits of Leipoa, so he took to himself a know-
ng native, and about the middle of November pre-
ceded to Knocker's Bay, a portion of Port
issington harbor very little known, but where he
ad been told a considerable number of these birds
night be seen. He landed close to a thicket, and
ad proceeded but a short distance from the shore
vhen he beheld a mound of 'sand and shells, with
slight mixture of black soil, whose base rested
n the sandy beach, a few feet above high-water
nark. The large yellow-blossomed Hibiscus
nveloped this conical tumulus, which was some
ve feet high, and twenty feet in circumference at
ts base. He turned to his native, and asked what
t was.

" Oregoorga rambal." (Jungle fowl's house
ir nest.)

Up scrambled Mr. Gilbert, and sure enough
bund a young bird in a hole about two feet deep,
apparently but a few days old, and lying on a few
dry leaves. The native protested to Mr. Gilbert
that it would be of no use to hunt for eggs, as
there were no traces of the old birds having been
ately there, so our collector secured the nestling,
placed it in a good-sized box with a sufficiency of
sand, and fed it with bruised Indian corn, which
it took lather freely ; but it was wild and un-
tractable, and on the third day it contrived to es-
cape from its prison. But while it remained in
the box, it was incessantly employed in scratching
up the sand into heaps, and although it was not
larger than a small quail, the vigor and rapidity
with which it threw the sand from one end of the
place of its confinement to the other, was quite
surprising. Poor Mr. Gilbert got but little sleep
while it was in his custody, for it was so restless
at night; that it kept him awake by the noises it
made in endeavoring to gain its liberty. Only
one foot was employed in scratching up the sand,
and when the bird had grasped a footful it threw
the sand behind it with small exertion, and with-
out shifting its standing position on the other leg.
This exertion seemed to Mr. Gilbert to proceed
from mere restlessness, and a desire to use its pow-
erful feet without having much, if any, connection
with feeding ; for Mr. Gilbert neve* detected the
bird in picking up any of the Indian corn which
was mixed with the sand while thus employed.

Eggs were continually brought to Mr. Gilbert ;
but he had no opportunity of seeing them taken
from the ground till the commencement of Feb-

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

49

ruary, when, on another visit to Knocker's Bay,
he saw them exhumed from a depth of six feet, in
one of the largest mounds which he had seen. In
this mound, the holes ran down in an oblique di-
rection, from the centre of the hillock towards the
outer slope, so that, although the eggs were six
feet deep from the top, they were not more than
two or three from the side. Mr. Gilbert was in-
formed that the birds lay only a single egg in each
hole, and that, after the egg is deposited, the earth
is immediately thrown down lightly until the hole
is filled up. Then the upper part of the mound
is smoothed and rounded over. The top and sides
of the mound betray the recent excavations of the
bird, for the distinct impressions of its feet are
there left, and the earth is so lightly thrown over,
that the direction of the hole is easily ascertained
by thrusting in a slender stick, the ease or diffi-
culty of the penetration indicating the length of
time that has elapsed since the operations of the
bird. But to reach the eggs is no easy task.
The natives dig them out with their hands alone,
making only sufficient room to admit their bodies,
and to throw out the earth between their legs.
By grubbing thus with their fingers, they are en-
abled to follow the direction of the hole with
greater certainty ; and it will, sometimes, at a
depth of several feet, turn off sharply at right
angles, its direct course being thwarted by a clump
of wood, or some other obstacle. Persevering as
the savage is, his patience is often sorely tried.
Upon the occasion of extracting these two eggs,
the native dug down six times successively, to a
depth Qf six or seven feet at least, without finding
an egg, and came up so exhausted that he refused
to try again. But Mr. Gilbert's anxiety to verify
the statement made to him was now completely
roused ; and, by the offer of an additional reward,
he induced the grubber to try again. The seventh
trial was crowned with success ; and Mr. Gilbert's
gratification was complete, when the native with
pride and satisfaction held up an egg, and after
two or three more attempts displayed a second.
" Thus proving," adds worthy Mr. Gilbert, " how
cautious Europeans should be of disregarding the
narrations of these poor children of nature, because
they happen to sound extraordinary, or different
from anything with which they were previously
acquainted."

In another mound, Mr. Gilbert, with the aid of
his native, obtained an egg from the depth of
about five feet, after excessive labor. This egg
was in a perpendicular position, and the holes in
this hillock — which rose to the height of fifteen
feet, was sixty in circumference at the base, and
like the majority of those he had seen, was so
enveloped amid trees of thick foliage, as to pre-
clude the possibility of the sun's rays penetrating
to any part of it — commenced at the outer edge
of the summit, and ran down obliquely to the cen-
tre. This mound felt quite warm to the hands.

Now comes the question, How do the young
birds effect their escape from the tomb where they
are literally buried alive ?

This sesms to be a mystery. Some natives

told Mr. Gould that they emerged without aid ;
others declared that the old birds, when the ful-
ness of time was come, scratched down to their
offspring, and set them free.

Mr. Gilbert found this megapode confined
almost exclusively to the dense thickets near the
sea-beach ; nor does it appear to be met with far
inland, except up the banks of creeks. The birds
go in pairs, or singly, feeding on the ground, on
roots, for the most part, which the powerful claws
of their great feet enable them to scratch up, and
on seeds, berries, and insects, especially the large
coleopterous kinds of the latter. They are not
easily procured, and though the whirring of their
wings as they fly away is often heard by those
who approach their haunts, the birds themselves
are seldom seen. The flight is heavy, and does
not seem capable of being long sustained. When
first disturbed, the jungle-fowl invariably makes
for a tree, and as soon as it there alights, stretch-
es out its head and neck in a straight line with
the body, and remains motionless in that attitude.
When thoroughly roused and alarmed, it flies hor-
izontally and laboriously for about a hundred
yards, with its legs hanging down. Mr. Gilbert
did not hear any note or cry ; but the natives de-
scribed and imitated it, and, according to them, it
clucks much in the fashion of a common domestic
fowl, the cluck ending in a peacock-like scream.
He observed that the birds continued to lay from
the end of August to March, when he left that
part of the country, and, if the natives are to be
believed, an interval of only four or five months,
including the driest and hottest portion of the
year, occurs between their breeding seasons. Mr.
Gilbert remarks that the composition of the mound
seems to influence the coloring of a thin epider-
mis,, with which the eggs are invested, and which
readily chips off, showing the shell to be white.
Thus, eggs deposited in a black soil, are exter-
nally of a dark reddish brown ; those placed in
sandy hillocks near the beach present a dirty,
yellowish-white hue. They differ in size consid-
erably ; but all are of the same form, with both
ends equal. The average size may be taken at
three inches five lines long, by two inches three
lines broad.

The geographical distribution of this singular
group of birds is not confined to Australia, but
extends from the Philippine Islands through those
of the Indian Archipelago to Australia.

The same Fauna that exhibits the anomalous
proceedings of the brush turkey, the native pheas-
ant, and the megapode, and the rude congeries of
materials in which they plant their eggs, leaving
them there to be hatched by vegetable fermenta-
tion and solar lieat, as the common snake con-
signs her eggs to the dunghill, presents the most
curious examples of bird architecture hitherto dis-
covered. The history of the elegant artificers of
these structures has more the semblance of an
Arabian tale than a sober statement of fact. The
bower-birds* of Australia display in the erection

* Geneva, Ptilonorhynchus and Chlamydera.

50

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

and decoration of their edifices for assembly and
halls of amusement, an ingenuity and taste that
place them far beyond any others of their race
with which we are acquainted.

Their constructions and collections — for they
are most ardent, assiduous, and indefatigable col-
lectors— had attracted the attention of travellers,
who were puzzled as to what cause they could at-
tribute the phenomena presented to them occa-
sionally in their journeys. To Mr. Gould, who
has dissipated the clouds which obscured so many
of the Australian animals, we are indebted for an
elucidation of this most curious mystery. He
watched the builders, obtained two of the bowers
complete, and, with his usual liberality, and not
without considerable difficulty, placed one in our
national museum and the other in that of Leyden.

The bower-like structures from which the birds
take their name first came under the notice of Mr.
Gould at Sydney. Mr. Charles Coxen had pre-
sented an example to the museum there as the
work of the satin bower-bird. With his usual
energy, Mr. Gould at once determined to leave no
means untried for ascertaining every particular re-
lating to this particular feature in the economy of
the bird ; and on visiting the cedar brushes of the
Liverpool range he discovered several of these
bowers or playing-places. He found them usually
under the shelter of an overhanging tree in the
most retired part of the forest, differing considera-
bly in size, some being a third larger than that
represented in Mr. Gould's admirable picture, (for
the illustrations in this, as well as in many of his
other works, are not mere figures — they are pic-
tures,) whilst others were much smaller. He
shall now speak for himself: —

The base consists of an extensive and rather con-
vex platform of sticks firmly interwoven, on the
centre of which the bower itself is built ; this, like
the platform on which it is placed and with which
it is interwoven, is formed of sticks and twigs, but
of a more slender and flexible description, the tips
of the twigs being so arranged as to curve inwards
and nearly meet at the top. In the interior of the
bower the materials are so placed that the forks of
the twigs are always presented outwards, by which
arrangement not the slightest obstruction is offered
to the passage of the birds. The interest of this
curious bovver is much enhanced by the manner in
which it is decorated at and near the entrance with
the most gayly-colored articles that can be collected,
such as the blue tail-feathers of the Rosehill and
Pennantian parrots, bleached bones, the shells of
snails, &c. ; some of the feathers are stuck in among
the twigs, while others, with the bones and shells,
are strewed about near the entrances. The pro-
pensity of these birds to pick up and fly off with
any attractive object is so well known to the natives,
that they always search the runs for any small miss-
ing article, as the bowl of a pipe, &c., that may
'have been accidentally dropped in the brush. I
myself found at the entrance of one of them a small
neatly-worked stone tomahawk, of an inch and a
half in length, together with some slips of blue
cotton rags, which the birds had doubtless picked
up at a deserted encampment of the natives.

Mr. Gould goes on to observe that the purpose

for which these curious bowers are made is not
yet, perhaps, fully understood. He is certain that
they are not used as a nest, but as a place of re-
sort for many individuals of both sexes, which,
when there assembled, run through and around the
bower in a sportive and playful manner, and that
so frequently that it is seldom entirely deserted.

The proceedings of these birds (adds Mr. Gould)
have not been sufficiently watched to render it cer-
tain whether the runs are frequented throughout
the whole year or not ; but it is highly probable
that they are resorted to as a rendezvous or playing-
ground at the pairing-time, and during the period
of incubation. It was at this season, as I judged
from the state of the plumage and from the internal
indications of those I dissected, that I visited these
localities ; the bowers I found had been recently
renewed ; it was, however, evident, from the ap-
pearance of a portion of the accumulated mass of
sticks, &c., that the same spot had been used as a
place of resort for many years. Mr. Charles Coxen
informed me, that, after having destroyed one of
these bowers and secreted himself, he had the sat-
isfaction of seeing it partially reconstructed ; the
birds engaged in this task, he added, were females.*

Such are the bovvers constructed by the satin
bower-bird, (Ptilonorhynchus holosericeus, Khul,)
the cowry of the aborigines of the coast of New
South Wales. The plumage of the adult male is
deep, shining, blue-black, well justifying that part
of its name which likens it u> satin, except the
primary wing-feathers, whose deep black more re-
sembles velvet, and the wing coverts, secondaries,
and tail-feathers, which are also of a velvety black,
tipped with lustrous blue-black. The eyes are of
a light caerulean blue, with a circle of red round
the pupil. The bill is of a bluish horn-color,
graduating into yellow at the tip, and the legs and
feet are yellowish white.

The head and all the upper surface of the fe-
male are grayish green, the wings and tail sulphur
brown. The same tints prevail on the under sur-
face as on the upper, but are much lighter, with a
tinge of yellow, and each feather of these under
parts has a scale-like appearance produced by a
crescent-shaped, dark-brown border at its extremity.
The irides are of a deeper blue than those of the
male, and there is only an indication of the red
ring. The bill is of a dark horn-color ; and the
feet are of a yellowish-white hue, tinged with
horn-color.

The young males closely resemble the females,
with this difference, that the hue of the under sur-
face is of a more greenish yellow, and the crescent-
shaped markings more numerous. The irides are
dark blue, the feet olive brown, and the bill black-
ish olive.

These birds, the male being in its transition
suit, may be seen at the garden of the Zoological
Society, where they have a bower, and where I
have had the pleasure of watching them. But I
must break off for the present, though much more
remains to be noticed with regard to this most in-

* Birds of Australia. By J. Gould, F. R. S., &c.
Published by the Author, 20 Broad Street, Golden Square.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

51

teresting group, and other temptations crowd upon
my pen. The hippopotamus — thanks to his pow-
erful highness, the Viceroy of Egypt, who saith to
a man "Go, and hegoeth;" and to good, zeal-
ous, indefatigable, disinterested Mr. Murray — is
delighting multitudes of eager spectators, who
crowd to the Regent's Park to see this most
healthy, good-humored, rollicking, pachydermatous
baby of five hundred pounds' weight, that has come
from a distance of five thousand miles to see and
be seen ; for he appears to be as pleased with his

visitors as they are with him. The thylacines —
shapes such as one sees in dreams — as yet so shy
and wild that they dash with horror from the sight
of a human face, and remain sulkily in their dor-
mitory, are arrived to add to our notions of Aus-
tralian wonders. The Egyptian snake-charmers
are come. There are, however, other things in
the world besides birds, beasts, and reptiles ; and
the friendly reader must be no longer detained
from the more interesting pages that here claim
his attention.

52

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

PART VIII.

ELEGANT and ingenious as are the structures
and collections of the satin bower-bird, the species
of the allied genus Chlamydera display still greater
architectural abilities, and more extensive, collec-
tive, and decorative powers.

The spotted bower-bird* is an inhabitant of the
interior. Its probable range, in Mr. Gould's
opinion, is widely extended over the central por-
tions of the Australian continent ; but the only
parts in which he observed it, or from which he
procured specimens, were the districts immediately
to the north of the colony of New South Wales.
During his journey into the interior, he saw it in
tolerable abundance at Brezi, on the river Mokai,
to the northward of the Liverpool plains ; and it
was also equally numerous in all the low scrubby
ranges in the neighborhood of the Namoi, as well
as in the open brushes that intersect the plains on
its borders. Mr. Gould is gifted with the eye of
an observer ; but, from the extreme shyness of its
disposition, it generally escapes the attention of
ordinary travellers, and it seldom allows itself to
be approached near enough for the spectator to
discern its colors. Its " harsh, grating, scolding
note" betrays its haunts to the intruder ; but,
•when disturbed, it seeks the tops of the highest
trees, and, generally, flies off to another locality.

Mr. Gould obtained his specimens most readily
by watching at the water-holes where they come
to drink; and, on one occasion, near the termina-
tion of a long drought, he was guided by a native
to a deep basin in a rock, where water, the pro-
duce of many antecedent months, still remained.
Numbers of the spotted bower-birds, honeysuck-
ers and parrots, sought this welcome reservoir,
which had seldom, if ever before, reflected a white
face. Mr. Gould's presence was regarded with
suspicion by the winged frequenters of this attrac-
tive spot ; but while he remained lying on the
ground perfectly motionless, though close to the
water, their wants overpowered their misgivings,
and they would dash down past him and eagerly
take their fill, although an enormous black snake
was lying coiled upon a piece of wood near the
edge of the pool. At this interesting post Mr.
Gould remained for three days. The spotted
bower-birds were the most numerous of the thirsty
assemblage there congregated, and the most shy ;
and yet he had the satisfaction of frequently seeing
six or eight of them displaying their beautiful
necks as they were perched within a few feet of
him. He slates that the scanty supply of water
remaining in the cavity, must soon have been ex-
hausted by the thousands of birds that daily re-
sorted to it, if the rains, which had so long been
suspended, had not descended in torrents.

Mr. Gould discovered several of the bowers of
this species during his journey to the interior ; the
finest of which, now in the National Museum, he
.brought to England. He found the situations of
these runs or bowers to be much varied. Some-

* Chlamydera maculata. — GOULD.

times he discovered them on the plains studded
with Myalls, (Acacia pendula,) and sornotimes in
the brushes with which the lower hills were
clothed. He describes them as considerably
longer, and more avenue-like, than those of the
satin bower-bird, extending in many instances to
three feet in length. Outwardly they were built
with twigs, and beautifully lined with tall grasses,
so disposed that their upper ends nearly met.
The decorations were very profuse, consisting of
bivalve shells, skulls of small animals, and other
bones.

Evident and beautiful indications of design (con-
tinues Mr. Gould) are manifest throughout the
whole of.the bower and decorations formed by this
species, particularly in the manner in which the
stones are placed within the bower, apparently to
keep the grasses with which it is lined firmly fixed
in their places ; these stones diverge from the
mouth of the run, on each side, so as to form little
paths, while the immense collection of decorative
materials, bones, shells, &c., are placed in a heap
before the entrance of the avenue, this arrange-
ment being the same at both ends. In some of the
larger bowers, which had evidently been resorted
to for many years, I have seen nearly half a bushel
of bones, shells, &c., at each of the entrances. In
some instances, small bowers, composed almost en-
tirely of grasses, apparently the commencement of
a new place of rendezvous, were observable. I
frequently found these structures at a considerable
distance from the rivers, from the borders of which
they could alone have procured the shells, and
small, round, pebbly stones ; their collection and
transportation must, therefore, be a task of great
labor and difficulty. As these birds feed almost
entirely upon seeds and fruits, the shells and bones
cannot have been collected for any other purpose
than ornament ; besides, it is only those which
have been bleached perfectly white in the sun, or
such as have been roasted by the natives, and by
this means whitened, that attract their attention.
I fully ascertained that these runs, like those of the
satin bower-bird, formed the rendezvous of many
individuals ; for, after secreting myself for a short
space of time near one of them, I killed two males
which I had previously seen running through the
avenue.

The plumage of. this species is remarkable. A
rich brown pervades the crown of the head, the
ear-coverts and the throat, each feather being bor-
dered by a narrow black line ; and, on the crown,
the feathers are small and tipped with silver gray.
The back of the neck is crossed by a beautiful,
broad, light, rosy pink band of elongated feathers,
so as to form a sort of occipital crest. The
wings, tail, and upper surface, are deep brown ;
every feather of the back, rump, scapularies, and
secondaries, having a large round spot of full buff
at the tip. Primaries slightly tipped with white.
All the tail-feathers with buffy white terminations.
Under parts grayish white. Flank-feathers zig-
zagged, with faint transverse light brown lines.
Bill and feet dusky brown. At the corner of the
mouth, the bare, thick, fleshy, prominent skin, is
of a pinky flesh color, and the irides are dark
brown.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

53

The rosy frill adorns the adults of both sexes;
but the young male and female of the year have
it not.

Another species, the great bower-bird,* was
probably the architect of the bowers found by
Captain Grey during his Australian rambles, and
which interested him greatly, in consequence of
the doubts entertained by him whether they were
the works of a bird or of a quadruped — the incli-
nation of his mind being, that their construction
was due to the four-footed animal. They were
formed of dead grass and parts of bushes, sunk a
slight depth into two parallel furrows, in sandy
soil, and were nicely arched above ; they were
always full of broken sea-shells, large heaps of
which also protruded from the extremity of the
bower. In one of these bowers, the most remote
from the sea of those discovered by Captain Grey,
was a heap of the stones of some fruit that evi-
dently had been rolled therein. He never saw
any animal in or near these bowers ; but the
abundant droppings of a small species of kanga-
roo close to them, induced him to suppose them
to be the work of some quadruped.

Here, then, we have a race of birds, whose
ingenuity is not merely directed to the usual ends
of existence — self-preservation, and the continua-
tion of the species— but to the elegancies and
amusements of life. Their bowers are their ball
and assembly rooms ; and we are very much mis-
taken if they are not like those places of meeting,

For whispering lovers made.

The male satin bower-bird, in the garden at
the Regent's Park, is indefatigable in his assiduity
towards the female ; and his winning ways to coax
her into the bower, conjure up the notion that the
soul of some Damon, in the course of its trans-
migration, has found its way into his elegant form.
He picks up a brilliant feather, flits about with ij
before her, and when he has caught her eye, adds
it to the decorations.

Haste, my Nanette, my lovely maid,
Haste to the bower thy swain has made.

No enchanted prince could act the deferential
lover with more delicate or graceful attention.
Poor fellow ; the pert, intruding sparrows plague
him abominably ; and really it becomes almost an
affair of police, that some measures should be
adopted for their exclusion. He is subject to fits,
too, and suddenly, without the least apparent
warning, falls senseless, like an epileptic patient ;
but presently recovers, and busies himself about
the bower. When he has induced the female to
enter it, he seems greatly pleased ; alters the dis-
position of a feather or a shell, as if hoping that
the change may meet her approbation ; and looks
at her as she sits coyly under the overarching
twigs, and then at the little arrangement which
he has made, and then at her again, till one could
almost fancy that one hears him breathe a sigh.
He is still in his transition dress, and has not yet
donned his full Venetian suit of black.

* Chlamydera nucfialis.

In their natural state, the satin bower-birds as-
sociate in autumn in small parties ; and Mr. Gould
states that they may then often be seen on the
ground near the sides of rivers, particularly where
the brush feathers the descending bank down to
the water's edge. The male has a loud, liquid
call ; and both sexes frequently utter a harsh
guttural note, expressive of surprise and dis-
pleasure.

Geffrey Chaucer, in his argument to The As-
semblie of Foules, relates that " All foules are
gathered before Nature on St. Valentine's day, to
chuse their makes. A formell egle beyng beloved
of three tercels, requireth a yeeres respite to make
her choise ; upon this triall, Qui bien aime tard
oublie—' He that loveth well is slow to forget.' "
The female saiin bower-bird in the Regent's Park
seems to have taken a leaf out of the " formell
egle's" book ; for I cannot discover that her hum-
ble and most obsequious swain has been rewarded
for his attentions, though they have been continued
through so many weary months ; but we shall
never be able entirely to solve these mysteries, till
we become possessed of the rare ring sent to the
King of Sarra by the King of Arabie, "by the
vertue whereof" his daughter understood "the
language of all foules," unless we can

Call up him that left untold

The story of Cambuscan bold,

Of Camball and of Algersife,

And who had Canace to wife,

That owned the virtuous ring and glass,

And of the wondrous horse of brass,

On which the Tartar king did ride.

Edmund Spenser, with due reverence for
Dan Chaucer, (well of English undefiled,)

has, indeed, done his best to supply the defect,*
and has told us that

Cambello's sister was fair Canacee,

That was the learnedst lady in her days,

Well seen in every science that mote be,

And every_ secret work of nature's ways,

In witty riddles and in wise soothsays,

In power of herbs, and tunes of beasts and birds:

but we learn from him no more of the ring than
" Dan Chaucer" tells us : —

The vertue of this ring, if ye woll here,
Is this ; that if she list it for to were
Upon her thombe, or in her purse it bere,
There is no foule that fleeth under heven
That she ne shall understand his stevenjt
And know his meaning openly and plaine,
And answer him in his language againe ;

as Canace does in her conversation with the falcon
in The Squier's Tale. Nor is the " vertue" of
the ring confined to bird-intelligence, for the
knight who came on the " steed of brasse," adds—-
And, every grasse that groweth upon root
She shall well know to whom it will do boot,
All be his wounds never so deep and wide.

But we must return from these realms of fancy to
a country hardly less wonderful ; for Australia
presents, in the realities of its quadrupedal forms,
a scene that might well pass for one of enchant-
ment.
* Fairy Queen, book iv., cant. 2, et seq. t Sound.

54

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

To the uninitiated, a commencement of an ac-
count in the following manner, would look very
like a narrative proceeding from the pen of the
renowned Captain Lemuel Gulliver.

The country of the marsupiates, or purse-bear-
ers, is of enormous extent, and forms a fifth quar-
ter of the globe. Their young are born in an
embryotic state, and conveyed to a comfortable
marsupium or pouch belonging to the mother,
where there are teats, to which these foetuses at-
tach themselves by their mouths. Here they
stick, like little animated lumps, till the small
knobs which exist at the places where the mem-
bers Jiight to be, bud and shoot out into limbs.
By and bye these limbs become more and more
perfect, and the extremities are completely formed ;
till gradually the development of the creature
reaches its proper proportions, and it is able to
go alone. It is right pleasant to behold these
curious little animals hopping or running about
their parents, and on the most distant approach of
danger flying for refuge to the purses of their
mothers, where they disappear till it is past, and
from whence, if they think they may safely ven-
ture, they peep out to see whether the coast is
clear.

This, however, is an account of the Marsupia-
lia, the Animalia crumenata of Scaliger, uncolored
by the slightest exaggeration.

New Holland is the head-quarters of these
anomalous creatures, and there the great type of
the group is placed ; nor does it extend far beyond
the main land among the adjacent islands. In
America it is scantily represented by the opos-
sum ; but neither the colder parts of that country
nor its southern extremity, know it ; neither do
any representatives of the family occur in Europe,
Asia, or Africa. Here, then, we have two far-
distant regions presenting themselves as the two
points of development of a form which has not
spread over other portions of the earth ; and, in
truth, this, combined with the palaeontological re-
searches of Dr. Lund -in Brazil, and of our own
Owen, relative to the quadrupedal fossil remains
of New Holland, is a strong argument for those
who look upon these countries as two distinct foci
of creation, and as affording examples, among
many others, militating against the notion of a
unique centre of origin of the animals now in ex-
istence.

These marsupials are, as far as observation has
gone, of a low grade in the scale of intelligence,
and their vocal powers are exceedingly limited.
A growl, or a sort of hollow bark, is the nearest
approach that is made among them to a completely
developed sound, and a half-hissing, half-wheezfng,
guttural attempt at a cry, is the noise most fre-
quently emitted by them when under the influence
of irritation. I have in vain looked for that at-
tachment to their keepers, and to those who are
kind to them, which characterizes the more highly-
developed quadrumanes and quadrupeds in captiv-
ity • and their manners seem to remind the observer

of the reptilian rather than of the mammalian
class. The wombat's loud serpentine hiss, when
provoked, cannot fail to raise this idea in the mind
of any generalizing naturalist who hears it ; and
as for the kangaroo, its larynx absolutely wants
the necessary apparatus for producing a vocalized
sound, to which the noise that the animal emits
bears no resemblance.

The brain in these creatures is in accordance
with the stupidity which renders them so unlike
those mammiferous quadrupeds in which that
organ exhibits a more advanced state of develop-
ment. The examination of those marsupials that
have fallen under the notice of comparative anato
mists, indicates the impossibility of their manifest-
ing those qualities which have so deservedly en-
deared the dog to man. They have no corpus
callosum ; and, without being very presumptuous,
that portion of the brain may be pronounced, upon
the authority of those who have not leaped to con-
clusions, but have humbly and patiently drawn
them from a long course of study and experiment,
to be the principal seat of memory. This defect
at once accounts for the stupidity and want of
attachment above alluded to. These marsupials
seem to have just as much intelligence as will en-
able them to perform the animal functions, and no
more. One of the Thylacines in the Regent's
Park, when shut out of his dormitory, spent his
time in walking round and round in a narrow circle,
without even examining the extent or nature of his
place of confinement, or expatiating ; no, he went
round and round, as if he had not sense to do any-
thing more.

But we must introduce this brute form more
particularly to our friends.

Thylacinus cynocephalus, the dog-faced opossum,
vulgarly known as the zebra opossum and zebra
wolf in Van Dieman's Land, is about the size of
a young wolf. The short, smooth, dusky brown
hair, is barred on the back, especially at the lower
part and on the rump, with some fifteen or sixteen
black transverse stripes, broadest on the back, and
narrowing as they extend down the sides. Two
or more of these zebra-like marks descend down
the thighs considerably. The ground color on the
back is of a blackish gray hue. The tail is long,
but not large, nor does it look well-proportioned
or symmetrically set on. It has forty-six teeth ;
eight incisors in the upper jaw and six in the
lower, two canines above and two below, and
twenty- eight molar teeth, fourteen in the upper
jaw and the same number in the lower. There
are five toes on each of the fore-feet, and four on
each of the hind-feet.

Mr. Harris has described this, the largest of the
Australian carnivorous animals in the Transactions
of the Linncan Society. He remarks that it utters
a short, guttural cry, and appears exceedingly
inactive and stupid, having, like the owl, an almost
constant motion with the nictitating membrane of
the eye. The animal described by him was taken
in a trap baited with kangaroo flesh, and lived

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

55

only a few hours after its capture ; in its stomach
were found the partly-digested remains of a porcu-
pine ant-cater.*

The native abode of this curious animal is among
the caverns and rocks of the deep and almost in-
penetrable glens near the highest mountains of Van
Dieman's Land.

I first clearly saw a pair of these animals fairly
out in the light on the 26th May last, in one of
the dens appropriated to the carnivorous animals
in the garden of the Zoological Society in the
Regent's Park. They had been presented to the
Society by Mr. Gunn. I had, on a former day,
seen them imperfectly by getting into the outer
apartment of their den and looking into their dor-
mitory. When fairly exposed, they presented to
my eyes the images of the most extraordinary ani-
mals that I had seen ; creatures, I repeat, such as
one has beheld in dreams — uncouth, loggerheaded,
oddly made up, as if Nature had been trying her
" 'prentice han' " at wolf-making, and as if they
belonged to a very ancient state of things in this
planet, as all the native Australian quadrupeds
do. The clumsy, ill-defined forms of these Thy-
lacines have puzzled men to give them a name.
" Wolves," "hyaenas," are some of the appellations
applied to them by the colonists, who saw a dog-
like or wolf-like head on a body striped with marks
resembling, in a degree, • those of some of the
hyaenas. It is impossible for a palaeontologist to
look at them without fancying that he sees some
fossil animal recalled to life ; and, indeed, the ex-
tinct zoophagous marsupial Thylacotherium must,
as its name implies, have borne some resemblance
to the animals now under consideration. There
cannot have been any very wide zoological interval
between the forms of the Thylacine and of the
Thylacothere.

The Thylacines, like all the true Australian
mammals, are strictly marsupial ; and the female
rejoices in as good a pouch after her kind as the
best-provided kangaroo of them all.

And what a beautiful provision this is ! how
admirably adapted to the region in which the
marsupials live, and move, and have their being !
Australia is proverbially wanting in rivers, and
during a considerable portion of the year the sup-
ply of water is very precarious. Most of these
quadrupeds drink very little ; and the mother,
instead of dragging hev young about wearily, to
look, perhaps in vain, for water, has them com-
fortably wrapped up in her pouch, and thrives
where a fox and her cubs would miserably per-
ish.

The size of the foetus of the kangaroo at the
time of birth, together with the mode of its
attachment to the nipple of the mother and other
highly interesting particulars, may be collected
from the experiments of Mr. Collie, Mr. Morgan,
and especially of Professor Owen. From these it
appears that the young, as soon as it is born, is
removed — by the mother's mouth in all probability

— to the pouch, which is held open by the mother's
fore-paws, and there held till it attaches itself to a
nipple.

Professor Owen ascertained that the days of
gestation in the kangaroo* are twenty-nine. In
order to accustom the female to the examination
of the pouch, they were commenced at a very
early period of gestation, and were continued, till
at seven in the morning of the 5th October, 1833,
the fetus was discovered in the pouch attached to
the left superior nipple. On the preceding day
at the same hour a considerable quantity of the
moist brown secretion peculiar to the pouch was
noticed, indicating that determination of the blood
to that part had commenced, and at different times
during that day the female put her head into the
pouch and licked off the secretion. When ex-
amined at six o'clock in the evening, the only per-
ceptible change in the state of the pouch was a
slight increase of the secretion ; but none of the
nipples exhibited any appearance indicating that
she was so soon to become a mother. Closely
watched as she was she contrived, however, to
elude observation at the actual time of parturition,
which took place in the night ; nor were there
any appearances on the litter or about the fur of
the animal indicative of the event.

The little one resembled an earth-worm in the
color and semi-transparency of its integument,
adhered firmly to the point of the nipple, breathed
strongly but slowly, and moved its fore-legs when
it was disturbed. Its little body was bent upon
the abdomen, its short tail tucked in between its
hind-legs ; and these legs, destined, if it had lived,
to be so gigantically developed, and to execute
such enormous bounds, were one third shorter than
the fore-legs ; but the three divisions of the toes
were distinct. Its whole length from the nose to
the end of the tail, when stretched out, did not ex-
ceed one inch and two lines.

The professor was aware that the Hunterian
dissections, which may be seen in the preparations
exhibited in the noble museum of the Royal Col-
lege of Surgeons of England, as well as the
observations of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Collie, con-
curred in disproving the theory of a vascular mode
of connection between the mammary fetus and the
nipple ; but as Geoffrey St. Hilaire had stated
that a discharge of blood accompanies marsupial
birth, or the detachment of the fetus from the
nipple, Professor Owen determined not to neglect
the opportunity thus offered, and on the 9th of
October, separated the infant creature from the
organ that bound it to life.

The following reasons urged him to this act.
First, it would decide the nature of the connec-
tion between the fetus and the nipple. Sec-
ondly, it promised to afford the means of ascer-
taining the mammary secretion at this period.
Thirdly, it might show whether so small a fetus
would manifest the powers of a voluntary agent in
regaining the nipple ; and, lastly, the actions of

* Echidna aculeata.

* Macropus major.

56

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

the mother to effect the same purpose would prob-
ably be brought under notice.

When the foetus, which retained a firm hold of
the nipple, was detached, a small drop of whitish
fluid, a serous milk, appeared on the point of the
nipple, which had entered the mouth about half a
line. This extremity was of smaller diameter
than the rest of the organ, not being yet so com-
pressed by the contracted orifice of the mouth as
to form the clavate appearance which it presents
at a later period. The poor young one moved its
extremities vigorously after it was detached, but
made no apparent effort to apply its legs to the
integument of the mother, so as to creep along,
but seemed to be perfectly helpless with regard to
progressive motion. It was deposited at the bot-
tom of the pouch. The mother was then liberated,
and carefully watched for an hour.

She immediately exhibited symptoms of unea-
siness, stooped down and licked herself, and
scratched the outside of her pouch. At last, rest-
ing on the tripod formed by her hind legs and tail,
she grasped the sides of the orifice of the pouch
with her forepaws, and, drawing them asunder as
in the act of opening a bag, she put her head into
the cavity as far as the eyes, and moved it about
in different directions. She never meddled with
the pouch when she was in a recumbent posture ;
but when apparently urged by uneasy sensations,
she rose and repeated the operation of drawing
open the bag and inserting her muzzle, keeping it
there sometimes for half a minute. Professor
Owen never observed her put her fore-legs into the
pouch ; they were invariably used to open it.
When she withdrew her head, she generally fin-
ished by licking the orifice of the pouch and swal-
lowing the secretion. After repeating the act
above described some dozen times, she lay down
and seemed to bs at ease. When she had re-
mained quiet for about half an hour, she was
again examined, and the young one was found,
not at the bottom of the pouch, but within two
inches of the nipple, breathing strongly and mov-
ing its extremities irregularly as before. The
professor made an unsuccessful attempt to replace
it on the nipple, and the mother was then released.
Two days afterwards the pouch was found empty.
Every portion of the litter was carefully searched,
but no traces of the foetus could be found. It was,
therefore, concluded, that the mother had proba-
bly destroyed it in consequence of the disturbance,
in accordance with the morbid habit to which I
have in another part of these papers alluded. It
is but just, however, to the professor to remark,
that he had no reason for anticipating this fatal
result ; for when the Zoological Society held the
farm at Kingston, the head keeper there had
twice taken a mammary kangaroo foetus from the
nipple and pouch of the mother when it did not
exceed an inch in length, and each time it again
became attached to the nipple. It continued to
grow without apparently having sustained any in-
jury from the separation, until the death of the
mother, when it was nearly fit for leaving the

pouch. The person who procured Mr. Collie's
specimen told that gentleman that the young one
did not pass the whole of its time with the papilla
in its mouth, but had been remarked more than
once not having hold of it. It had even been
wholly removed from the pouch to the person's
hand, and had always attached itself anew to the
teat. Mr. Collie, with the tip of his finger, gently
pressed the head of the little one away from the
teat, of which it had hold, and continued pressing
a little more strongly for a minute altogether,
when the teat, that had been stretched to more
than an inch, came out of the young one's mouth,
and showed a small circular enlargement at its
tip, well adapting it for being retained by the
sucker's mouth, the opening of which seemed
closed in on both sides, and only sufficiently open
in front to admit the slender papilla. After this
Mr. Collie placed the extremity of the teat close
to the mouth of the young, and held it there for a
short time without perceiving any decided effort
to get hold of it anew ; when he allowed the
pouch to close and put the mother into her place
of security. An hour afterwards the young one
was observed still unattached ; but in about two
hours it had hold of the teat and was actively
sucking.* Moreover, Mr. Morgan had detached
a mammary foetus about the size of a Norway rat,
and after a separation of two hours from the nip-
ple it regained its hold, without sustaining any in-
jury from the interruption.

But although the pigmy young one has power
enough to grasp the nipple and adhere firmly to it
by the muscular strength of its lips, it must not
be supposed that it is capable of drawing suste-
nance therefrom by its unaided efforts. So foetal
a rudiment would have been in a sad condition,
if it had depended for its supply entirely on its
own exertions; but bounteous Nature has pro-
vided the assistance without which it must have
perished. Geoffroyand the lamented Mr. Morgan
have both demonstrated the action of a muscle on
the mammary gland, so as to inject the milk into
the mouth of the adherent suckling.

Here again is an instance of that wonderful
adaptation of creative power, which must strike
every one not absolutely petrified.

But, it may be objected, you can hardly assert
that the young one's efforts of suciion should al-
ways coincide w;jh the injecting acts of the moth-
er ; and you must allow that if at any time there
should be no such coincidence, the milk would be
injected into the larynx, and so suffocate the fcetus.

Most true ; but the same Power that willed the
birth of the creature in such an embryotic condi-
tion has guarded against the possibility of this
fatal result. The epiglottis and arytenoid carti-
lages are elongated and approximated, and the slit
of the glottis is consequently placed at the apex of
a conical larynx, which projects, as in the whales,
into the posterior nostrils, where it is closely em-
braced by the muscles of the soft palate. Thus is

* Zool. Journ., vol. r.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

57

the air-passage completely separated from the fau-
ces, and as the mother injects the milk the divided
stream passes, without the possibility of its " go-
ing the wrong way," on each side of the larynx
into the oesophagus and stomach.*

It has been remarked, that the conveyance of
the fetus into the pouch is probably effected
by the mouth of the mother. The reasons for
this belief are well given by Professor Owen, who
observes, that, apart from the other circumstantial
evidence, this mode of transmission is consistent
with analogy, the mouth being always employed
by the ordinary quadrupeds — dogs, cats, and
mice, for instance — for the purpose of removing
their helpless offspring. The tender embryo
would be more liable to injury from the fore-paws ;
and these, from the absence of a thumb, could not
so securely effect the conveyance as the lips,
which can be opposed to each other.

The advantages of such a vivarium as that be-
longifig to the Zoological Society of London in the
Regent's Park are here strongly manifested. Pro-
fessor Owen was enabled by his autopsy to correct
the error of Geoffrey St. Hilaire, (who had even
speculated on the anastomoses and distribution of
the continuous vessels, in the neck of the fcetus to
account for its junction with the maternal nipple,)
and to come to what may be deemed the safe con-
clusion as to the mode of the removal of the new-
ly-born foetus to the pouch, where it is probably
conducted to and held over a nipple by the mouth
of the mother, while the pouch is kept open by
her fore-paws, till she feels that her young one
has, with its lips, laid hold of the sensitive ex-
tremity of the organ from which it is to derive its
subsistence.!

But to return to the Thylacines.

They were so very shy and wild, that it was
some time before they could be turned into their
outer apartment while their sleeping-place was
being cleaned, without actual danger to them-
selves ; they threw themselves about so recklessly,
dashing themselves in their terror against the
•walls and bars of their place of confinement.
When I saw them out they had a most wild and
scared appearance, and made haste to escape from
the light of day to the obscurity of their inner
den.

The porcupine ant-eater, whose remains Mr.
Harris found in the stomach of his Thylacine, is
The hedge-hog of the Sydney colonists, and, to-
gether with the Ornithorhynchus, belongs to that
other anomalous tribe of quadrupeds to which
Geoffroy gave the apt name of Monotremes. In

* Geoffrey first described this perfect contrivance ; but,
as Professor Owen observes, John Hunter seems to have
foreseen the necessity of it, and, indeed, as the professor
further remarks, there are evidences in Hunter's prepara-
tions in the museum of the college, that he had antici-
pated most of the anatomical discoveries which have sub-
sequently been made upon the embryo of the kangaroo.

t See Professor Owen's admirable paper " On the Gen-
eration of the Marsupial Animals, with a Description of
the Impregnated Uterus of the Kangaroo." Phil. Trans.
1834.

these the reptilian character still further prevails
mingled with that of birds.

Though they have no pouch, they possess the
marsupial bones, which, however, play a very
different part in them from that assigned to those
bones in the kangaroo and true Marsupiata.
They have a clavicular bone placed more forward
than the normal clavicle, reminding the observer
of the furciform bone, or merry- thought in birds,
to which, indeed, it is analogous ; and the cora-
coid bone reaches the breast bone. Their eyes
are very little, and their ears are without any ex-
ternal appendage.

Their mode of re-production was for a long
time considered doubtful ; some holding that they
laid eggs like the birds and reptiles, and others
that the young were brought forth alive. Those
who maintained the former theory relied upon
stories of nests, and eggs, and egg-shells having
been found ; but these stories, when subjected to
cross-examination, were generally found to bear a
very strong resemblance to that method of reason-
ing which ascribed the existence of the Goodwin
Sands to the building of Tenderden steeple.

For example, one sees an ornithorhynchus come
from a bank, lands with his native, and finds at the
spot from whence the paradoxical animal had re-
treated a couple of eggs. The native tells the
white man that this is the Mallangong's* nest, and
that those are its eggs. The eggs are secured, and
triumphantly produced as conclusive evidence of
the oviparous nature of the animal. They prove
to be reticulated externally, and to those conver-
sant with the subject exhibit all the characters of
the eggs of a reptile, which may have been there
deposited by one of that class, and have been
visited by the ornithorhynchus for the purpose of
seasoning its insect diet with an omelette au nat-
urel. How many of these reptilian eggs the
ornithorhynchus may have swallowed before it
was disturbed does not appear. But we knovr
that the ornithorhynch burrows ; and is it probable
that, contrary to all the usual instincts that prompt
animals to conceal their nests, eggs, and young,
this creature should expose its eggs openly on the
bank instead of hiding them in its burrow, if,
indeed, it lays eggs at all? We know, too, that
each of these monotremes possesses a mammary
gland ; and the truth, in all probability,. is that the
eggs of the echidna and ornithorhynchus are
hatched internally, and that their young are
brought forth alive, as a viper produces hers.

Such are these other extraordinary forms of
this extraordinary land. The first, the hedge-hog
of the colonists — now become very rare in the
colony — a toothless, terrestrial, burrowing animal,
living on ants, endowed with great strength, and
covered with spines. The second, a heteroclite,
with the fur of a mole, or, if you will, of a
water vole, a bill like a duck — furnished with
what may be termed, for want of a better descrip-

* Mallangong is the name given to this extraordinary
animal by the natives.

58

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

tion, an apology for teeth ; forming, however, an
apparatus amply sufficient for the mastication of
its insect food — burrowing in the banks of rivers,
and whose palmated feet enable it to swim and
dive, making it perfectly at home in the water.

Like the kangaroo* and other Australian ani-
mals, these are rapidly disappearing before the
march of civilization ; and the noble native sav-
age, naked but not ashamed, complains bitterly
that the white man's kangaroo, as he terms the
sheep and oxen of the colonist, have destroyed
his, and declares that he ought to have compensa-
tion. He has a far better case than many who
obtain it from our best of all possible parlia-
ments.

At some future period our readers may wish to
form a more particular acquaintance with these
monotremes ; but at present we must leave them
to write a few words on that observed of all ob-
servers, the newly-arrived hippopotamus.

26th May. — This day I have seen the first
living hippopotamus that ever gratified the eye in
this country ; or, indeed, I might add in Europe,
since the time of the later Roman emperors. It
appears on a coin of Marcia Otacilia Severa, the
wife of Philip, who was elected by the senate
and people upon the assassination of the third
Gordian. There is a figure of the beast in one
of the tombs of Beni Hassan, far up the Nile,
and remarkable for its fresco paintings, where the
upward curve of the angle of the mouth is very
characteristically given.f

Our specimen was safely lodged in its newly
built apartments last night. When I first saw it
it was in its bath — a spacious and deep tank, with
wooden lining, and with steps for the ease of the
bather when going in and out — and put me in
mind, as T looked down on the animal's broad,
rounded back, of a submerged black portmanteau
that had by some fairy freak been endowed with
motion. It was in the most perfect health, sank
and rose gradually, playfully closed its mouth —
the action cannot properly be termed biting— on
the woodwork at the side ; sank again, and when
at the bottom walked leisurely about as if looking
iLr something, wondering, perhaps, why the luxu-
riant water-plants of Africa were not growing
there. After disporting itself some time, it lei-
surely walked out, and then gave one the idea of a
cetacean mounted upon four short pillar-like legs.
Its keeper led the way to its sleeping apartment,
and the attached animal followed him there like
a dog, along the whole length of the giraffe-
house to the place where the ostriches were in
the winter. The dormitory of the hippopotamus
was profusely strewn with clean fresh straw, and
the animal having entered it, I had an opportunity
of observing him closely. I gently tickled and
scratched him about the eyes, muzzle, and ears,

* The frequency of these animals in our parks and
menageries a few years since must have been observed by
many. Now we rarely see one.

t A copy of this drawing, by Mr. John M'Gregor, is
given in the Illustrated London News, 25th May, 1350.

and the good-natured animal lazily lay down like
a dog or a pig to enjoy the operation. When I
ceased and retired, he rose with playfully open
mouth to follow me ; and his keeper, Hamet, who
was then with him — a fine young man, with a
Nubian or Egyptian cast of countenance — was
obliged to shut the door of his apartment to keep
him in, notwithstanding his remonstrating snort.

The first parts of his organization that struck me
were the eyes and the nostrils. The former
have, at first sight, a very extraordinary appear-
ance, and convey the idea of enormous projection
of the eye-ball ; as if such protrusion was the
result of some injury or disorder, external or in-
ternal. But no. Here is another instance of the
most beautiful adaptation. The muscles of the
eye must be most powerful, and must be endowed
with great versatility, capable of protruding or
withdrawing the eye-ball, which can be either
projected remarkably, or sunk within the orbit
considerably, so as to adapt it for vision in the
different media where it is to act, whether the
animal be on land, just under the water, or far
dovm beneath its surface. It brought to my mind
a similar adaptation in birds, where the bony ring
and muscles form a telescopic apparatus in eagles
and other birds of prey.

The nostrils, which are so placed that they
appear above the surface of the water first when
the animal rises from below, can be closed like
those of a seal when the vanimal descends into the
deep, and opened when it comes up for the pur-
pose of taking in a supply of air. But though the
nostrils can be closed like those of the seal, the
machinery for working them must be more com-
plicated than the muscles which enable that animal
merely to close or open those gates of breath at
pleasure. In the hippopotamus the nostrils,
which appeared to me to be situated more verti-
cally than those of the seal, can be mounted up,
as it were, by a process indicating the presence of
an orbicular sphincter with a protrusive power, so
that the air can be taken in with the least possible
exposure of the head.

These two portions of its animal machinery are
of the greatest consequence to the well-being and
safety of an animal that spends so much of its
time in the water. The beautifully contrived eye
is unlike that of any mammiferous quadruped
known to me. It approaches, in its power of
rolling round, when it is in a state of protrusion,
to that of the chameleon, and, like it, must com-
mand a very extensive area. See how admirably
this is fitted to the requirements of the animal.
If danger threatens, the hippopotamus instinctively
rushes to the river ; and while there latent, can
manage to just lift his head among the water-
plants, and roll his eye " like the bull in Cox's
museum," but to much better purpose. If all is
safe, and according to his observation he may turn
out, he can quit his subaqueous retreat ; or, if all
be not right, he can quietly sink again and remain
in his cool and unapproachable retreat at the
bottom, occasionally rising and protruding his

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

59

muzzle only for the necessary air-supply, and then
down again. Thus, if the animal be on its guard,
presenting no mark for a rifle, even if the hand
that bore it could " haud out " like that of the
Master of Ravenswood.*

Professor Owen, in a most interesting account
lately published,! states that the skin is almost
flesh-colored round the eyelids, which defend the
peculiarly situated and prominent eyes, and that
there is a single groove or fold above the upper
eyelid and two curved grooves below the lower
one. At first sight, he truly says, they seem de-
void of eyelashes ; but on a close inspection a few
very short hairs may be seen on the thick rounded
margin of the upper lid. He further observes,
that the protruding movement of the eyeball from
the prominent socket shows an unusual proportion
of the white, over which large conjunctival vessels
converged to the margin of the cornea, and that
the retraction of the eyeball is accompanied by a
protrusion of a large and thick palpebra nictitans,
and by a simultaneous rolling of the ball obliquely
downwards, and inwards, or forwards. There is,
he adds, a caruncle, or protuberance, on the mid-
dle of the outer surface of the nictitating lid. The
color of the iris he describes as dark brown, the
pupil as a small transversely oblong aperture,
and the eyeball as relatively small and remarkable
for the extent of the movements of protraction and
retraction.

* Take the evidence of one who would have struck the
dollar from between the finger and thumb of the keeper,
as cleverly as ever Edgar could have done the feat.

" Seleka had sent men down to the river to seek.
sea-cows" — the name by which the hippopotami are
known to the colonists — "and they soon came running
after me to say that they had found some. I accordingly
followed them to the river, where, in a long, broad, and
deep bend, were four hippopotami, two full-grown cows,
a small cow, and a calf. At the tail of this pool was a
strong and rapid stream, which thundered along, in High-
land fashion, over large masses of dark rock.

"On coming to the shady bank, I could at first see
only one old cow and calf. When they dived I ran into
the reeds, and as the cow came up I shot her in the head ;
she, however, got away down the river and I lost her.
The other three took away up the river, and became very
shy, remaining under the water for five minutes at a time,
and then only popping their heads up for a few seconds.
I accordingly remained quiet behind the reeds, in hope
of their dismissing their alarms. Presently the two
smaller ones seemed to be no longer alarmed, popping up
their entire heads, and remaining above water for a minute
at a time ; but the third, which was by far the largest, and
which I thought must be a bull, continued extremely shy,
remaining under the water for ten minutes at a time, and
then just showing her face for a second, making a blow-
ing like a whale, and returning to the bottom. I stood
there with rifle at my shoulder, and my eye on the sight,
until I was quite tired. / thought I should never get a
chance at her, and had just resolved to fire at one of the
smaller ones, when she shoved up half her head and
looked about her. I made a correct shot ; the ball
cracked loudly below her ear, and . the huge body of the
sea-cow came floundering to the top. I was enchanted ;
she could not escape. Though not dead, she had lost her
senses, and continued swimming round and round, some-
times beneath and sometimes at the surface of the water,
creating a fearful commotion." The victim was after-
wards secured, and " her flesh proved most excellent." —
Five years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of
South Africa, &c. By Roualevn Gordon Gumming,
Esq., of Altyre. 2 vols. 8vo. London : John Murray,
Albemarle street. Every page of the book of this
mighty hunter teems with moving incidents.

T In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for
June, 1850.

The nostrils, (continues the professor,) situated
on prominences which the animal has the power
of raising, on the upper part of the broad and mas-
sive muzzle, are short, oblique slits, guarded by
two valves, which can be opened and closed spon-
taneously like the eyelids. The movements of these
apertures are most conspicuous when the beast is
in his favorite element. The wide mouth is chiefly
remarkable for the upward curve of its angles
towards the eyes, which gives a quaintly comic
expression to the massive countenance. The short
and small milk-tusks project a little, and the minute
deciduous incisors appear to be sunk in grooves or
pits of the thick gums ; but the animal would not
permit any close examination of his teeth ; with-
drawing his head from the attempt, and then
threatening to bite. The muzzle is beset with
short bristles, projecting at pretty regular dis-
tances ; several of them appearing to be split into
tufts or pencils of short hairs. Extremely fine and
short hairs are scattered all over the back and
sides ; which are not very obvious, except upon a
close inspection. The tail is short, rather flattened,
and gradually tapering to an obtuse point.

The animal, when just out of the water, appeared
to me to be of a bluish black color above — except
the ears, which were flesh color, and which it
moved in a vivacious manner — and of a ruddy
flesh color below. There was a scar on the lei't
side.

The rictus of the mouth was very grotesque,
and made a sharp angle upward when the creature
gaped. The skin was dotted at short intervals
with the apertures of the muciparous glands exu-
ding the liquor for lubricating the hide. Though,
at first sight, the hide looks hairless, it has, now,
a short coat of minute hair, as fine as floss silk,
or more like the down upon the lip of a youth, or
of a very young man. When it was at the bottom
of the water I thought the animal looked more
blue, or somewhat lighter, and the spots denoting
the presence of the muco-sebaceous pores were
very conspicuous.

The amphibious character of the animal's life
induces us to look for some machinery which ena-
bles it to remain below the surface of the water.
The venous reservoirs of the seals, and the arterial
plexiform receptacles of the whales, will instantly
occur to the physiologist. The latter are most
complex and ample, as might be expected of
organs fitted to secure a supply of aerated blood to
the brain, derived from a heart that sends out
some ten or fifteen gallons of blood at every stroke,
through a tube of a foot in diameter, with immense
velocity. One hour and ten minutes ordinarily
elapse from the time of a whale's descent below
the surface to that of his rising again to breathe,
and Leviathan has been known to remain under
for an hour and twenty minutes. It has been
calculated that about a seventh of his time is con-
sumed in respiration. The seals in their natural
state have been known to remain under water for
periods varying from a quarter of an hour to five-
and-twenty minutes ; but, it has been observed,
that a seal in confinement has remained asleep
with its head under water for an hour at a time.
The period during which a hippopotamus can

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

remain submersed does not appear to have been
accurately defined ; but as the animal walks lei-
surely about at the bottom of a river, from five to
ten minutes may probably be spent by it when
disposed to remain so long without coming up.*

Sparrmann and Mr. Gumming are conspicuous
among those who have recorded the habits of the
hippopotamus in a state of nature. The latter, in
his wild and wonderful book, most graphically
describes them.

Look on this scene : —

When the sun went down, the sea-cows com-
menced a march up the river. They passed along
opposite to my camp, making the most extraordi-
nary sounds — blowing, snorting and roaring, some-
times crashing through the reeds, and sometimes
swimming gently, and splashing and sporting
through the water. There being a little moonlight,
1 went down with my man Carey, and sat some-
time on the river's bank contemplating these won-
derful monsters of the river. It was a truly grand
and very extraordinary scene ; the opposite bank
of the stream was clad with trees of gigantic size
and great beauty, which added greatly to the in-
terest of the picture. — Vol. ii., p. 167.

And again, at p. 171 : —

At every turn there occurred deep, still pools,
with occasional sandy islands densely clad with
lofty reeds, and with banks covered with reeds to a
breadth of thirty yards. Above and beyond these
reeds, stood trees of immense age and gigantic size,
beneath which grew a long and very rank descrip-
tion of grass, on which the sea-cow delights to pas-
ture. I soon found fresh spoor,f and after holding
on for several miles, just as the sun was going
down, and as I entered a dense reed cover, I came
upon the fresh lairs of four hippopotami. They
had been lying sleeping on the margin of the river,
and, on hearing me come crackling through the
reeds, had plunged into deep water. I at once as-
certained that they were newly started, for the
froth aod bubbles were still on the spot where they
had plunged in. Next moment I heard them blow-
ing a little way down the river. I then headed
them, and with considerable difficulty, owing to the
cover and the reeds, I at length came right down
above where they were standing. It was a broad
part of the river, with a sandy bottom, and the
water came halfway up their sides. There were
four of them, three cows and an old bull ; they
stood in the middle of the river, and, though
alarmed, did not appear aware of the extent of the
impending danger.

It would be unjust to this painter with a pen,
to omit the following grand picture, or to present
it in any other than the vivid form which it takes
under his hand : —

We had proceeded about two miles, when we
came upon some most thoroughly-beaten, old-estab-
lished hippopotamus paths, and presently, in a
broad, long, deep, and shaded pool of the river ,J
we heard the sea-cows bellowing. There I beheld
one of the most wondrous and interesting sights

* It is probably reserved for Professor Owen to detect
and describe the natural apparatus which enables the hip-
popotamus to remain underwater; but we hope it will
be a long time before he will have it in his power to solve
the problem.

t Tracks. * The Limpopo.

that a sportsman can be blest with. I at once knew
that there must be an immense herd of them, for
the voices came from different parts of the pool ;
so, creeping in through the bushes to obtain an in-
spection, a large sandy island appeared at the neck
of the pool, on which stood several large shady
trees.

The neck of the pool was very wide and shallow,
with rocks and large stones ; below it was deep
and still. On a sandy promontory of this island,
stood about thirty cows and calves, whilst in the
pool opposite, and a little below them, stood about
twenty more sea-cows, with their heads and backs
above water. About fifty yards further down the
river again, showing out their heads, were eight
or ten immense fellows, which I think were all
bulls ; and about one hundred yards below these,
in the middle of the stream, stood another herd of
about eight or ten cows with calves, and two huge
bulls. The sea-cows lay close together like pigs ;
a favorite position was to rest their heads on their
comrades' sterns and sides. The herds were at-
tended by an immense number of the invariable
rhinoceros birds, which, on observing me, did their
best to spread alarm through the hippopotami. 1
was resolved to select, if possible, a first-rate old
bull out of this vast herd, and I accordingly de-
layed firing for nearly two hours, continually run-
ning up and down behind the thick thorny cover,
and attentively studying the heads. At length 1
determined to go close in, and select the best head
out of the eight or ten bulls which lay below the
cows. I accordingly left the cover, and walked
slowly forward in full view of the whole herd, to
the water's edge, where I lay down on my belly,
and studied the heads of these bulls. The cows,
on seeing me, splashed into the water, and kept a
continual snorting and blowing till night set in. —
P. 194.

Upon another occasion (p. 218) Mr. Gumming
fell in with a herd of about thirty hippopotami •
they lay upon some rocks in the middle of a very
long and broad pool ; and, again, with at least
thirty lying upon the rocks in the middle of e
river. He describes the noise made by the hip-
popotami as similar to that of the musical instru-
ment called a serpent. The following truculent
trap will be as new to most of my readers as it is
to me : —

On the 20th (July) I again rode down the river
to the pool, and found a herd of sea-cows still there ;

I remained with them till sun-down, and bagged
two very first-rate old sea-cows, which were forth-
:oming next day. This day I detected a most dan-
gerous trap> constructed by the Bakalahari for slay-
ing sea-cows. It consisted of a sharp little assagai,
or spike, most thoroughly poisoned, and stuck
irmly into the end of a heavy block of thorn wood,
about four feet long, and five inches in diameter.
This formidable affiiir was suspended over the cen-
tre of a sea-cow path, at a height of about thirty
feet from the ground, by a bark cord, which passed
over a high branch of a tree, and thence to a peg
on one side of the path beneath, leading across the
path to a peg on the other side, where it was fas-
;ened. To the. suspending cord were two triggers,
so constructed, that when the sea-cow struck
against the cord which led across the path, the
heavy block above was set at liberty, which in-
stantly dropped with immense force with its poi-

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

61

sonous dart, inflicting a sure and mortal wound.
The bones and old teeth of sea-cows, which lay
rotting along the bank of the river here, evinced
the success of this dangerous invention. — P. 197.

But we must unwillingly leave this fascinating
journal, penned amid the wildest, grandest, and
most stirring scenes that ever blessed or shocked
a wild hunter's vision, to return to the private
history of our obese, tame, but most amusing
baby. Its capture, in fulfilment of the nod of the
friendly autocrat who presented it, was effected at
the commencement of August, in the bygone year,
up the Nile, nearly two thousand miles from Cairo,
when its bulk was about that of a newly-dropped
calf, but its proportions were much stouter, and
its height much lower. Its unfortunate mother
was mortally wounded, and her attempt to return
towards some bushes growing thickly on the river's
bank, instead of taking as usual to the water, at-
tracted the notice of the hunters, who found the
calf there among the rank grass. It slipped
through their fingers, however, and instantly made
for the river, which it would have gained, if one
of the party had not struck the boathook into its
flank, gaffing it as an angler would a large fish.
The mark of this wound it still bears, as above-
mentioned.

It soon became much attached to those who had
the care of it, treating them as standing in loco
parentis, and looking to them for the supply of its
wants. On its passage in the Ripon steam-ship,
whence it was landed at Southampton on the
morning of the 25th of May, its keeper's hammock
was slung over its berth, as I was told. The
poor man must have had but a disturbed time of
it, for his fond charge could not bear his absence
without showing anxiety bordering on distress,
and at night, as I was informed, would knock up,
ever and anon, with his chowder head, as Jack
would call it, at the overhanging hammock, to
ascertain whether his sable friend was there.

The strong attachment of the animal to its keep-
er, (writes Professor Owen, in the narrative to
which we have already referred,) removed every
difficulty in its various transfers from ship to train,
and from wagon to its actual abode. On arriving
at the gardens, the Arab who had the charge of it
walked first out of the transport van, with a bag
of dates over his shoulder, and the beast trotted
after him, now and then lifting up its huge, gro-
tesque muzzle, and sniffing at its favorite dainties,
with which it was duly rewarded on entering its
apartment. When I saw the hippopotamus the
next morning, it was lying on its side in the straw,
with its head resting against the chair on which its
swarthy attendant sat ; it now and then uttered a
soft complacent grunt, and lazily opening its thick,
smooth eyelids, leered at its keeper.

After lying quietly about an hour, now and then
raising its head and swiveling its eyeballs towards
the keeper, or playfully opening its huge mouth
and threatening to bite the leg of the chair on
which its keeper sat, the hippopotamus rose and
walked slowly about its room, and then uttered a
loud and short harsh note, four or five times in
quick succession, reminding one of the snort of a
horse, and ending with an explosive sound like a

bark. The keeper understood the language, and
told us that the animal was expressing its desire to
return to its bath. The beast at this time was in
one of the compartments of the wing of the giraffe
house, on the opposite side to that in which its
bath is prepared. It carries its head rather de-
pressed, and reminded me most of a huge prize
hog, but with a breadth of muzzle and other feat-
ures peculiarly its own. The keeper opened the
door leading into the giraffe's paddock, and walked
through that to the new wing containing the bath,
the hippopotamus following like a dog close to his
heels. On arriving at the bath-room, the animal
descended with some deliberation the flight of low
steps leading into the water, stooped and drank a
little, dipped his head under, and then plunged for-
wards. It was no sooner in its favorite element
than its whole aspect changed, and it seemed in-
spired with new life and activity ; sinking down to
the bottom, and moving about submerged for
awhile, it would suddenly rise with a bound almost
bodily out of the water, and splashing back, com-
menced swimming and plunging about with a ceta-
ceous or porpoise-like rolling from side to side,
taking in mouthsfull of water and spurting them
out again, raising every now and then its huge
grotesque head, and biting the woodwork at the
margin of the bath. The broad, round back of the
animal being now chiefly in view, it looks a much
larger animal than when out of the water. After
half-an-hour spent in this amusement, it quitted the
water at the call of its keeper, and followed him
back to the sleeping-room, which is well bedded
with straw, and where a stuffed sack is provided
for its pillow, of which the animal, having a very
short neck, thicker than the head, duly avails itself
when it sleeps.

I was told that when it was at Cairo it ate a
good deal of clay ; and the Arabs, it seems, have
expressed a desire that it should have some here.
I believe that it is perfectly safe in the hands of
Mr. Mitchell; and if it should be thought fit to
indulge it with clay, those whom its odd ways
delight may rest secure that Mr. Mitchell will not'
let Hippo be bricked up with our London clay;
but if clay must be given, will prescribe some of
the mud of the Colne or Thames, wherein the
water-lilies grow so luxuriantly. In the stomachs
of the young hippopotamus opened by Sparrman,
there was a good deal of "dirt," with curd and'
leaves quite fresh ; and it is not improbable that
this V dirt" may be required by the animal to cor-
rect the acidity arising from its diet, as calves lick
chalk. In scooping up the water-plants from the
bottoms of rivers and their banks with the enor-
mous dental apparatus of the lower jaw, a consid-
erable quantity of the soil must be taken up, and
that some of it finds its way to the stomach is ev-
ident from Sparrman's evidence.

Two of his attendants, Jabar Abou Haijab and
Mohammed Abou Merwan — these, as far as I can-
make them out, are their names — are snake-
charmers, of whom and of whose performance I
shall have something to say hereafter. The for-
mer, an old man, was employed by the French
savans in Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition, and
collected reptiles for Geoffrey ; the latter Arab,
who appears to be some fifteen years of age, and

62

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

is the principal performer with the serpents, is, I
have heard, his nephew, and is the playfellow of
the hippopotamus. When I saw him, on the occa-
sion of my first view of his playmate, he had a
gold ear-ring and a gold finger-ring, and was clad
in fantastic costume, with a feather in his head-
gear, and in an old pair of Wellington boots, long
since unacquainted with blacking, and a world too
wide for his bare shanks. Of these he seemed
more proud than of all the rest of his apparel put
together, but they so galled his naked feet that
they soon brought him to poultices, and he has
since taken to stockings and slippers. A complaint
has, I hear, been brought against him for teazing
the monkeys, which he excites into a frantic state.
Sheetan* — the name in which he rejoices among
his familiars — pleaded guilty, and begged hard
that one of the monkeys might be assigned to him
for education — the height of his ambition at pres-
ent being to teach his cheiroped scholar to charm
serpents.

His games of romps with the hippopotamus are
'first-rate. After a little provocation by eccentric
antics, which would have done credit to Flibberti-
gibbet himself, he flies, and his obese four-footed
frolicsome friend shuffles after him with his mouth
open — and such a mouth! — in all the beauty of
ugliness. This playful running after its friends
open-mouthed may be interpreted in two ways :
first, as it wsuld act with its mother, half in play,
half as a hint for nourishment ; and secondly, as
a lamb, a goat, or a calf butts, before their horns
.have budded, betraying a consciousness on the part
of our gambolling pachyderm of the locality where
the terrible offensive armour is to be with which
hereafter he may bite with a vengeance.

Professor Owen states that we may reckon this
young animal to be tea months old, and that it is
now seven feet long, and six and a half feet in
girth at the middle of the barrel-shaped trunk,
which is supported, dear of the ground, on very
short and thick legs, each terminated by four spread-
ing hoofs, of which the innermost is the smallest
on the forefoot ; the two middle ones, answering
to those which are principally developed in the hog°
are the largest in both feet.

The hind-limb (writes Professor Owen in continu-
at*«n) is buried in the skin of the flank nearly to the
prominence of the heel. Thick flakes of cuticle are
in process of detachment from the sole. There is
.a well-defined white patch behind each foot, but I
looked in vain for any indications of the glandular
orifice which exists in the same part in the rhinoc-
eros. The naked hide covering the broad back
and sides is of a dark India-rubber color, impressed
by numerous fine wrinkles crossing each other, but
disposed almost transversely. When I first saw
the beast it had just left its bath, and a minute drop
of a glistening secretion was exuding from each of
the conspicuous mucosebaceous pores, which are
dispersed over the whole integument, at intervals
of from eight lines to an inch. This gave the

* Satan.

hide, as it glistened in the sunshine, a very pecu-
liar aspect. When the animal was younger the
secretion had a reddish color, and being poured out
more abundantly, the whole surface brcame paint-
ed over with it every time he quitted his bath.

Nothing can be more correct than this admirable
description, with the exception of the alleged
nakedness of the skin. The integument, at first
sight, does appear naked ; but it is found, as I have
stated above, on a close inspection, to be covered
with very fine downy hairs, which will, probably,
totally or partially vanish as the animal advances
in age.

The gambols and civilities of this denizen of the
Nile are not confined to his keepers. I had been
told that, when out in the giraffe-paddock, one of
the giraffes had bowed down its head to him one
day, and that the hippopotamus opened his mouth
and took the giraffe's muzzle into the gulf, which
seems to be his way of kissing. On Sunday, the
9th of June, I saw one of the giraffes do the same
thing, with exactly the same result. He had, I
have been told, formed an acquaintance with a giraffe
which was to have been brought over with him,
but was unfortunately drowned.

Such is the quadruped whose animal magnetism
Punch has so forcibly depicted attracting the crowds
who are hurrying to its presence. If a mate —
and this is far from improbable — should be sent
over to join him in August by the same liberal and
friendly potentate to whom we owe the present
object of admiration, who shall predict the conse-
quence of the double attraction ?

The third Gordian did not live to see the por-
tentous games for which he had caused so vast an
assemblage of wild beasts to be brought to Rome.
The milliarium s&culum was celebrated by Philip
not without suspicion, almost amounting to proof,
that the blood of his predecessor was on his head.
Philip, in his turn, did not live long after the
celebration of that prolonged festival, during which
two thousand gladiators at once joined in the death-
struggle for the gratification of the people. Defeat-
ed by Decius, who had got himsdlf proclaimed
emperor in Pannonia, Philip fell under the merci-
less hands of his own soldiers near Verona, in the
year of Christ 249, before he had completed his
forty-fifth year, and before the fifth year of his
enjoyment of his bad eminence had run its course.
The hippopotamus, which formed a principal feat-
ure in those murderous diversions, appears not
only on the large brass of Otacilia Severa, but
also on one of Philip, (about A. D. 247,) and on
another of Hadrian. These, and the well-known
plinth of the statue of Nilus, show how familiar
this huge form was to Roman eyes.

I have not heard whether Mr. Wyon has been
directed to strike a medal to commemorate this
substantial gift of his highness the Viceroy of
Egypt, or whether Mr. Gibson has received a
commission to immortalize him in marble ; but
there can be no doubt that Sir Edwin Landseer
must hand down his likeness to posterity.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

63

FOR behold, I will send serpents and cockatrices
among you, which will not be charmed ; and they
shall sting you, saith the Lord. — Jerem. viii. 17.

Such is the version given in Barker's Bible,*
of the passage which figuratively threatens the
sending of the Babylonians among the Jews,
" who," as the old commentator writes in the
margin, " shall utterly destroy them in such sort,
as by no meanes they shall escape."

The version now read in our churches runs
thus —

For behold I will send serpents, cockatrices,
among you t which will not be charmed, and they
shall bite yju, saith the Lord ;

and is more correct, zoologically speaking.

What the serpents threatened were, is more
apocryphal. The Greek version has " basilisks."
Both basilisks and cockatrices — at least those so-
called venomous creatures of which such marvel-
lous tales are to be found in old authors — are
fabulous creations. The Hebrew word is Tsep-
huon or Tsiphoni, (Tsepha or Zepha,) and has
been rendered as applicable to the aspic, the regu-
lus, (another word for the basilisk,) the hemior-
rhoos, the viper, and the cerastes.

But whatever the species of serpents may be,
the passage above cited, as well as others, which
will readily occur to the scriptural scholar, shows
the great antiquity of the art of charming ser-
pents. Thus, in Psalm Iviii., we have the follow-
ing description of the wicked : —

4 Their poyson is even like the poyson of a ser-
pent : like the deafe adder that stoppeth his eare.

5 Which heareth not the voyce of the inchanter,
though he be most expert in charming.f

These incantations were too tempting to be
neglected by the poets. The shepherd in Virgil
alludes to their destructive powers : —

Carminibus Circe socios mutavit Ulixi :
Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis.t

Manilius and Ovid use nearly the same expres-
sions. Tl e words of the former are —

Consultare fibras, et rumpere vocibus ang-ues.

And the Poet of Love, the Moore of his day,
writes : —

Carmine dissiliunt abruptis faucibus angues
Inque suos fontes versa recurrit aqua.§

The Psylli, and their neighbors the Marmaridae,
were among the most famous for their power over

* 1615.

t Barker's Bible. In the version now read in our
churches the words are : —

4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like
the deaf adiler that stoppelh her ear ;

6 Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming
never so wisely.

And in the Book of Common Prayer the words are : —

4 They are as venomous aa the poison of a serpent : even like
the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears ;

5 Which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer: charm he
never so wisely.

t Pfiarmaceutria, Eclog. viii.
§ Amor. lib. ii. El. 1.

serpents. These African charmers of snakes, and
the Italian Marsi, carried, if we are to believe one
half of the accounts recorded of their feats, this
magic art to the highest point of infallibility.
The magi played upon pipes made of the legs and
bones of cats to call the serpents together ; upon
the same principle, I suppose, that actuated the
less ambitious enchanters, who, to rid themselves
of mice, played upon a pipe made of their verte-
brae, the dulcet and attractive notes of which
brought every mouse within hearing to listen to
the performance.

Crates of Pergamus saith, that in Hellespont,
about Parium, there was a kind of men, (whom he
nameth Ophiogenes,) that if one were stung with
a serpent, with touching only will ease the paine.
And if they doe but lay their hands upon the
wound, are wont to draw forth all the venom out
of the body. And Varro testifies, that even at this
day there be some there who warish and cure the
stinging of serpents with their spittle, but there
are but few such as he saith. Agatharchides
writes that, in Affrick, the Psyllians (so called of
King Psyllus, from whose race they were descend-
ed, and whose sepulchre or tombe is at this day
present to be seene in a part of the greater Syrtes)
could do the like. These men had naturally that
in their own bodies, which, like a deadly bane and
poyson, would kill all serpents ; for the very air
and sent that breathed from them was able to stu-
pifie and strike them starke dead. And by this
means they used to try the chastitie and honestie
of their wives. For so soon as they were delivered
of children, their manner was to expose and pre-
sent the silly babes new borne, unto the utmost fell
and cruel serpents they could find : for if they were
not right, but gotten in adultery, the said serpents
would not avoid and fly from them. This nation
verily in generall hath been defeated and killed up
in manner all by the Nasomenes, who now inhabit
those parts wherein they dwelt : howbeit a kind
remains still of them, from those that made shift
away and fled, or else were not present at the said
bloudy battel ; but there are very few of them at
this day left.*

The author of Thaumatographia, in his chapter
on nutrition, alludes to the Ophiogenes of the
Hellespont, and says that they fed upon serpents,
and that a certain man who rejoiced in that diet,
was thrown into a cask filled with them, and ie-
mained intact. This probably was the envoy
Hexagon, who said that he came from the Psylli
or Marsi, and whom the Roman consuls, ty way
of testing the trdth of his mission, cast into a
vessel swarming with venomous snakes, which
miraculously harmed him not.

The Marsians in Italy at this present continue
with the like naturall vertue against serpents :
whom being reputed to be descended from ladie
Circes son,f the people in this regard do highly
esteem, and are verily persuaded that they have in
them the same facultie by kinde. And what great
wonder is this, considering that all men carry
about them that which is poyson to serpents : for
if it be true that is reported, they will no bet-
ter abide the touching with man's spittle, than

* Holland's Pliny.

t Marsus.

64

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

scalding water cast upon them : but if it happen to
light within their chawes, or mouth, especially if
it come from a man that is fasting, it is present
death.*

Ovid, in his poetical treatise on cosmetics,^
thus opens his lessons to his fair pupils : —

Disci te, <juae faciem commendet cura, puellae :
Et quo sit vobis forma tuenda modo.

Not only does he give them every information that
can add to the attractions of their toilet — he does
more, he tells them what to avoid. He warns
them against witchcraft and incantation : —

Nee mediae Marsis finduntur cantious angues ;
Nee redit in fontes unda supina suos.

Now let us see what Dr. Mead says to these
supernatural gifts : —

There were formerly in Africa a nation of peo-
ple called Psylli, famous for the cure of the bite of
serpents, with which the country above all others
abounds. (PLiN. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 2.) These
people were thought to have something in their
constitution so contrary to poison, that no venom-
ous creature would touch them : and it was pre-
tended that they made this a trial of the legitimacy
of their children. The truth of the matter is, they
performed the cure in a manner very surprising to
the vulgar, that is by applying their mouth to the
wound and sucking out the venom. The Marsi in
Italy pretended to the same power. Some cere-
monies to overawe the patient and gain reverence
to the operator, were added to the performance :
but Celsus, the Latin Hippocrates, has wisely ob-
served tha», •' These people had no particular skill
in this management, but boldness confirmed by
use ; for the poison of the serpent, as likewise
some hunting poisons which the Gauls particularly
make use of, are not hurtful in the mouth but in
the wound. Therefore whosoever will, after their
example, suck the wound, will be in no danger
himself, and will save the life of the wounded
person." — Medecin. lib. v. c. 17. J

Aristotle (Hist. Anim. lib. viii. c. 29) states,
that the saliva of a man is hostile to most ser-
pents ; and Nicander declares that serpents fly from
even the smell of human spittle.

Of the efficacy of sucking the wound there can
be no doubt, as we shall see when we come to
consider the treatment of persons bitten by ser-
pents. At present we must return to the regions
of enchantment, from which honest Dr. Mead has
drawn us aside, and call up one or two of the
ancient worthies whose names as serpent-charmers
and serpenticides have survived to this day.

Whether Atyr was a Psyllian or Marsian does
not appear ; but Silius Italicus has imortalized
him and his powers : —

Nee non serpentes diro exarmare veneno
Doctus Atyr, tactuque graves sopire chelydors.

Lucian has handed down the name of Babylonius
the Chaldaean, who, sallying forth in the morning
into the open country, pronounced certain sacred
names from an ancient volume, made his lustra-
tions with sulphur and a torch, stalked solemnly
round in a circle thrice, and evoked all the ser-

* Holland's Pliny.

* Mead on Poisons.

t Medicamina faciei.

pents that infested the region. The reptiles
obeyed him as if he had been another St. Patrick,
crept out at his summons whether they would or
no, and, no doubt, suffered accordingly.

That it was part of the ancient priestcraft to
render the most venomous serpents innoxious hard-
ly needs proofs.

Herodotus relates that, in the neighborhood of
Thebes, there are sacred serpents which are quite
harmless. That they were of the most deadly
nature is evident from his description : for he says
that they are diminutive in size, with two horns
that grow out of the top of the head. This ex-
actly describes the poisonous cerastes, of which
more anon. Herodotus goes on to state, that when
these serpents died they were buried in the tem-
ple of Zeus; for, writes the Halicarnassian, they
are sacred to that god (Ammon.)* The venom-
ous Naia Haje, El Haje, or Haje Nascher of the
modern Arabs, was chosen by the Ancient Egyp-
tians as the emblem of Cneph, the good deity,

i[t(av^ and as the mark of regal dignity. The
front of the tiara of the majority of the statues of
the Egyptian deities and kings is adorned with this
serpent, and Denon's figure, with the forepart
erect and the hood expanded, represents it nearly
as it appears on the sculptured stone.

Its congener, the deadly Nag,f the cobra de
capello of the Asiatic Portuguese, is still worship-
ped in some of the temples of India, where the
Hindus believe that, in sagacity and the malicious
tenacity with which it treasures up a wrong, it is
not inferior to man. They have been seen, upon
a pipe being played to them, to come forth from
their holes in the sacred edifice, and feed upon the
hand ; and it is when the people behold this most
destructive serpent in so subdued and docile a
state, that they believe that the god has entered
into the form.

The only modes by which such docility and
harmlessness could be effected, without resorting
to what are usually termed supernatural means,
are actual extraction of the poison fangs and their
glands ; kindness, which, if judiciously and perse-
veringly managed, will tame almost every living
creature ; the use of certain herbs by the serpent-
charmer ; and, lastly, an innate possession and con-
sciousness of the power, with a firm conviction
that no serpent, however venomous, can injure
the operator.

That most of the priests and jugglers availed
themselves of the obvious and mechanical means
of rendering such serpents as the cerastes and both
species of naia innoxious, there can be little doubt.
But when we come to examine the evidence, we
shall feel as little that some snake charmers may
handle the most venomous serpents, while in full
possession of their power of inflicting death, with
perfect safety.

Conjurers (writes Hasselquist) are common in
Egypt. They are peasants from the country, who
come to Cairo to earn money this way. I saw one

* Euterpe. 74.

t JVai'a tripudians.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

65

the 24th, who was expert enough, and in dexterity
equalled those we have in Europe ; but can do one
thing the Europeans are not able to imitate ; namely,
fascinate serpents. They take the most poisonous
vipers with their bare hands, play with them, put
them in their bosoms, and use a great many more
tricks with them, as I have often seen. The per-
son I saw on the above day had only a small viper,
but I have frequently seen them handle those that
are three or four feet long, and of the most horrid
sort. I inquired and examined whether they had
cut out the viper's poisonous teeth ; but I have seen
with my own eyes they do not : we may therefore
conclude, that there are to this day Psylli in Egypt ;
but what art they use is not easily known. Some
people are very superstitious ; and the generality
believe this to be done by some supernatural art,
which they obtain from invisible beings. I do not
know whether their power is to be ascribed to good
or evil ; but I am persuaded that those who under-
take it use many superstitions. I shall hereafter
give a plainer description, with some observations
on this subject.*

This was in June, and, according to his promise,
Hasselquist thus resumes the subject : —

The 3d (July.) — Now was the time to catch
all sorts of snakes to be met with in Egypt, the
great heats bringing forth these vermin ; I there-
fore made preparation to get as many as I could,
and at once received four different sorts, which I
have described and preserved in aqua vita. These
were the common Viper, the Cerastes of Alpin,
Jaculus, and an Anguis marinus. They were
brought me by a Psylli, who put me, together with
the French consul, Lironcourt, and all the French
nation present, in consternation. They gathered
about us to see how she handled the most poison-
ous and dreadful creatures, alive and brisk, without
their doing, or even offering to do, her the least
harm. When she put them into the bottle where
they were to be preserved, she took them with her
bare hands, and handled them as our ladies do their
laces. She had no difficulty with any but the Vi-
perae officinales, which were not fond of their lodg-
ing. They found means to creep out before the bot-
tle could be corked. They crept over the hands
and bare arms of the woman, without occasioning
the least fear in her ; she with great calmness took
the snakes from her body, and put them into the place
destined for their grave. She had taken these ser-
pents in the field with the same ease she handled
them before us ; this we were told by the Arab who
brought her to us. Doubtless this woman had some
unknown art which enabled her to handle these
creatures. It was impossible to get any informa-
tion from her, for on this subject she would not
open her lips. The art of fascinating serpents is a
secret among the Egyptians. It is worthy the en-
deavors of all naturalists, and the attention of every
traveller, to learn something decisive relative to
this affair. How ancient this art is amongst the
Africans, may be concluded from the ancient Marsi
and Psylli, who were from Africa, and daily showed
proofs of it at Rome. It is very remarkable that
this should be kept a secret for more than 2000
years, being known only to a few, when we have
seen how many other secrets have within that time
been revealed.

Monsieur Jacquin wrote to Linnaeus that he had
purchased the secret of charming serpents, and

* Voyages and Travels in the Levant, in the years
1749, 50, 51, 52.

that the Aristolochia anguicida, the Mexican Aris-
tolochia, or Birthwort, was the plant used by
the Indians for that purpose. Forskhal also in-
formed the illustrious Swede that the Egyptians
use a species of Aristolochia, but without desig-
nating it. To return to Hasselquist : —

The circumstances relating to the fascination of
serpents in Egypt stated to me, were principally, —

1st. — That the art is only known to certain fami-
lies, who propagate it to their offspring.

2d. — The person who knows how to fascinate
serpents, never meddles with other poisonous ani-
mals ; such as scorpions, &c. There are different
persons who know how to fascinate these animals ;
and they again never meddle with serpents.

3d. — Those that fascinate serpents eat them both
raw and boiled, and even make broth of them, which
they eat very commonly amongst them ; but in
particular, they eat such a dish when they go out
to catch them. I have even been told that serpents,
fried or boiled, are frequently eaten by the Ara-
bians, both in Egypt and Arabia, though they know
not how to fascinate them, but catch them either
alive or dead.

4th. — After they have eaten their soup, they
procure a blessing from their scheik, who uses
some superstitious ceremonies, and, amongst others,
spits on them several times with certain gestures.

After making this statement, Hasselquisl thus
continues : —

The matter of getting a blessing from the priest
is pure superstition, and certainly cannot in the least
help to fascinate serpents ; but they beli&ve, or will
at least persuade others, that the power of fasci-
nating serpents depends upon this circumstance.
We see, by this, that they know how to make use
of the same means used by other nations; namely,
to hide under the superstitious cloak of religion
what may be easily and naturally explained, espe-
cially when they cannot or will not explain the nat-
ural reason. I am inclined to think that all which
was formerly, and is yet, reckoned witchcraft,
might come under the same article with the fasci-
nation of serpents. The discovery of a small
matter may in time teach everybody to fascinate
serpents ; and then this power may be exercised by
those who have not got it from the hands of the
holy scheik, just as the heat would naturally hatch
chickens in an Egyptian oven ; whether a scheik
did or did not lay himself naked on it, when the
eggs are just put in : yet to this ceremony do the
superstitious Egyptians ascribe the happy event of
the chicken being hatched, when they are asked
the reason. I have been told of a plant with which
they anoint or rub themselves before they touch the
serpents ; but I have not hitherto received the least
description of it, therefore I regard it as fabulous.

Bruce, whose testimony is worthy of all credit,
notwithstanding the vile usage he met with from
many of his contemporaries, shall next be
called : —

The cerastes (writes the Abyssinian traveller)
moves with great rapidity, and in all directions —
forward, backward, and sideways. When he in-
clines to surprise any one who is too far from him,
he creeps with his side towards the person, and his
head averted, till, judging his distance, he turns
round, springs upon him, and fastens upon the part
next to him; for it is not true what is said, that
the cerastes does not leap or spring. I saw one of

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

them at Cairo, in the house of Julian and Rosa,
crawl up the side of a box, in which there were
many, and there lie still as if hiding himself, till
one of the people who brought them to us came
near him, and though in a very disadvantageous
posture, sticking, as it were, perpendicular to the
side of the box, he leaped near the distance of three
feet, and fastened between the man's forefinger
and thumb, so as to bring the blood. The fellow
showed no signs of either pain or fear, and we kept
him with us full four hours, without his applying
any sort of remedy, or his seeming inclined to do
so.

So much for the bite. But it may be said that
the serpent may have been so mutilated as to make
his bite innoxious.

To make myself assured (adds Bruce) that the
animal was in its perfect state, I made the man
hold him by the neck, so as to force him to open his
mouth, and lacerate the thigh of a pelican, a bird
I had tamed as big as a swan. The bird died in
about thirteen minutes, though it was apparently
affected in fifty seconds ; and we cannot think this
was a fair trial, because a very few minutes before
it had bit the man, and so discharged part of its
virus, and it was made to scratch the pelican by
force, without any irritation or action of its own.

Again, speaking of the incantation of serpents,
Bruce says —

There is no doubt of its reality. The Scriptures
are full of it. All that have been in Egypt have
seen as many instances as they chose. Some have
doubted that it was a trick, and that the animals so
handled had been first trained, and then disarmed
of the power of hurting ; and, fond of the discovery,
they have rested themselves upon it, without ex-
' periment, in the face of all antiquity. But I will
; not hesitate to aver that I have seen at Cairo (and
jjjff this may be seen daily without trouble or expense)
a man, who came from above the catacombs, where
the pits of the mummy-birds are kept, who has
taken a cerastes with his naked hand from a number
of others lying at the bottom of the tub, has put it
upon his bare head, covered it with the common red
cap he wears, then taken it out, put it in his
breast, and tied it about his. neck like a necklace ;
after which it has been applied to a hen and bit it,
which has died in a few minutes ; and, to complete
the experiment, the man has taken it by the neck,
and, beginning at his tail, has ate it, as one would
do a carrot or a stock of celery, without any seem-
ing repugnance.

What follows is strongly in favor of immunity
by the use of vegetable antidotes.

We know from history that where any country
has been remarkably infested with serpents, there
the people have been screened by this secret.
The Psylli and Marmarides of old, undoubtedly,
were defended in this manner —

Ad quorum cantus mites jacudre cerastse.

SIL. ITAL. lib. iii.

To leave ancient history, I can myself vouch that
all the black people in the kingdom of Sennaar,
whether Funge or Nuba, are perfectly armed against
the bite of either scorpion or viper. They take the
cerastes in their hands at all times, put them in
their bosoms, and throw them to one another, as
children do apples or balls, without having irritated

them by this usage so much as to bite. The
Arabs have not this secret naturally, but from their
infancy they acquire an exemption from the mortal
consequences attending the bite of these animals,
by chewing a certain root, and washing themselves
(it is not anointing) with an infusion, of certain
plants in water.

The next paragraph is particularly worthy of
attention. It points out the subdued state of the
serpent when in the hands of one of these protected
people.

One day, when I was with the brother of Shekh
Adelah, prime minister of Sennaar, a slave of his
brought a cerastes, which he had just then taken
out of a hole, and was using it with every sort of
familiarity. I told him my suspicion that the teeth
had been drawn, but he assured me they were not,
as did his master Kittou, who took it from him,
wound it round his arm, and, at my desire, ordered
the servant to carry it home with me. I took a
chicken by the neck, and made it flutter before
him ; his seeming indifference left him, and he bit
it with great signs of anger ; the chicken died al-
most immediately. I say, his seeming indifference,
for I constantly observed, that however lively the
viper was before, upon being seized by any of these
barbarians he seemed as if taken with sickness and
feebleness, frequently shut his eyes, and never
turned his mouth towards the arm of the person
that held him. I asked Kittou how they came to
be exempted from this mischief; he said they were
born so ; and so said the grave and respectable men
among them. Many of the lighter and lower sort
talked of enchantments by words and by writing,
but they all knew how to prepare any person by
medicines, which were decoctions of herbs and
roots.

Bruce was evidently satisfied in his own mind
that a person could be so prepared as to do the
same feats as these fascinators performed ; and it
is to be regretted that he did not make the exper-
iment, or have it made, though it can hardly be a
subject of wonder or blame that he did not.

I have seen many (says Bruce) thus armed for a
season "do pretty much the same feats as those that
possessed the exemption naturally. The drugs
were given me, and 1 several times armed myself
as I thought, resolved to try t the experiment, but
my heart always failed me when I came to the
trial ; because, among these wretched people, it
was a pretence they might very probably have shel-
tered themselves under, that I was a Christian —
that, therefore, it had no effect upon me. I have
still remaining by me a small quantity of this root,
but never had an opportunity of trying the experi-
ment.

On the 26th of May, the day on which I first
saw the hippopotamus, I witnessed the performance
of the Arab snake-charmers, of whom I have al-
ready spoken. After their dinner they came from
the giraffe-house, proceeding along the gravel
walk to the reptile-house, on the floor of which,
about three o'clock in the afternoon, or a little
later, the performance took place. The charmers
took up a position at the end of the house, opposite
to the lodging of the great Pythons, of whose size
the old Arab had heard with something very like

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

67

incredulity. The company stood in a semicircle,
and at a respectful distance. There was not much
difficulty in getting a front place, but those behind
pressed the bolder spectators rather inconveniently
forward.

Standing in the open space the old Arab said
something to the young one, who stooped down
under the reptile cases on the north side of the
rooia, and drew out a large deal box with a sliding
cover, which looked like a box fyr stowing away
a set of Brobdignag chessmen, drew off the cover,
thrust in his hand, and pulled out a large long
naia haje. After handling it and playing with it
a little while, he set it down on the floor, half
squatted close to it, and fixed his eye on the snake.
The serpent instantly raised itself, expanded its
hood, and turned slowly on its own axis, following
the eye of the young Arab, turning as his head,
or eye, or body turned. Sometimes it would dart
at him, as if to bite. He exercised the most per-
fect command over the animal. All this time the
old Arab stood still, pensively regarding the oper-
ation ; but presently he also squatted down, mut-
tering some words, opposite to the snake. He
evidently affected the reptile more strongly than
his more mercurial relative, though he remained
motionless, doing nothing that I could see but fix-
ing his eyes upon the snake, with his face upon a
level with the raised head of the serpent, which
now turned all its attention to him, and seemed to
be in a paroxysm of rage. Suddenly it darted
open-mouthed at his face, furiously dashing its
expanded whitish-edged jaws into the dark hollow
cheek of the charmer, who still imperturbably kept
his position, only smiling bitterly at his excited
antagonist. I was very close, and watched very
narrowly ; but though the snake dashed at the old
Arab's face and into it more than twice or thrice,
with its mouth wide open, I could not see the
projection of any fang.

Then the old Arab, who, it was said, had had
the gift of charming serpents in his family for a
long series of years, opened another box, and took
ont four or five great lizards, and provoked the
naia with them, holding them by the tails in a
sort of four-in-hand style. Then the youth
brought out a cerastes, which, I observed, seemed
overpowered, .as if, as the country people say,
something had come over it. He ,placed it on the
floor, but this serpent did not raise itself like the
naia, but, as the charmer stooped to it, moved in
a very odd, agitated manner, on its belly, regard-
ing him askant. , I thought the serpent was going
to fly at the lad, but it did not. He took it up,
played with it, blew or spit at it, and then set it
down, apparently sick, subdued and limp. He
then took it up again, played with it a second
time, gathered it up in his hand, put it in his
bosom, went to another box, drew the lid, and
brought out more snakes, one of which was an-
other naia, and the others of a most venomous
kind.

Now there were two naias, with heads and
bodies erect, obeying, apparently, the volition of

the charmers. One of the snakes bit the youth
on the naked hand, and brought the blood ; but
he only spat on the wound and scratched it with
his nail, which made the blood flow more freely
Then lie brought out more lizards of a most
revolting aspect. By this time the floor of the
reptile-house, that formed the stage of the charm-
ers, began to put one in mind of the incantation
scene in Der Freischiilz, only that the principal
performers looked more like the Black Huntsman
and one of his familiars than Rodolph and Caspar,
and the enchanters' circle was surrounded with
fair ladies and their well-dressed lords, instead of
the appalling shapes which thronged round the
affrighted huntsman at the casting of the charmed
bullets. The Arabs, holding the snakes by the
tails, let their, bodies touch the floor, when they
came twisting and wriggling on towards the spec-
tators, who now backed a little upon the toes of
those who pressed them from behind. Sometimes
the charmers would loose their hold, when the
serpents, as if eager to escape from their torment-
ors, rapidly advanced upon the retreating ring ;
but they always caught them by the tails in time,
and then made them repeat the same advances.
I kept my position in front throughout, and had no
fear, feeling certain that Mr. Mitchell, and those
under whose superintendence this highly amusing
and instructive establishment is so well conducted,
would not have permitted the exhibition to take
place, if there had been the least danger. Besides
this, I observed that the charmers only used their
own serpents, which they had, I presume, brought
with them ; and I confess that the impression
upon my mind was that they had been rendered
innoxious by mechanical means.

We have already seen that the gift or power
of charming serpents is said to be hereditary, like
the alleged craft of the Dowsers, as they are called,
of Cornwall, who use the divining rod with success
in so many instances. The Arab lad, who is only
fifteen, but who is said to have left a wife behind
him in Egypt, when asked how he obtained his
power, stated that his father was a holy man, and
not afraid of serpents — that neither is he afraid,
and that they cannot hui't him. The old man,
Jabar Abou Haijab, states that they belong to a
tribe known by the name of Rufaiah, who have
handed down the mystery of serpent-charming
from father to son for many generations, and over
whom serpents have no hurtful power. The
tribe, it would seem from the accounts of these
Arabs, derives its name from Rufai, a Mahomme-
dan saint, whose tomb is said still to remain at
Busrah, and to it the Rufaiah make pilgrimages.
It is stated to be the haunt of numerous serpents,
whose mouths are closed by the saint, so that the.
pilgrims go boldly among them without fear or
harm.

The serpents which figure most prominently in
the performance of these Arabs are the Egyptian
cobra, Naia haje ; and the cerastes, Vipera (ceras-
tes) caudalis. A sketch of the history and habits
of these snakes may be deemed not misplaced.

68

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

The Egyptian cobra, which wants the curious
spectacle-like mark on the back of the neck that
distinguishes the Asiatic species, is of a somewhat
dark and greenish hue, marked with brownish, and
attaining the length of from three to five feet.
This is the serpent which the Egyptian conjurers
know how to render stiff and immovable by press-
ing the nape of the neck with the finger, and thus
throwing it into a sort of catalepsy. The serpent
is thus apparently converted into a rod or stick.

Traces of this conversion occur in the Scrip-
tures— for instance, where Pharaoh's wise men
cast down their rods, which were turned into ser-
pents, but were devoured by the serpent of Aaron.

Take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and it
shall be turned into a serpent.

Then went Moses and Aaron unto Pharaoh, and
did even as the Lord had commanded : and Aaron
cast foorth his rod before Pharaoh and before his
servants, and it was turned into a serpent.

Then Pharaoh called also for the wise men, and
sorcerers : and those charmers also of Egypt did in
like manner with their enchantments.

For they cast downe every man his rod, and they
were turned into serpents : but Aaron's rod de-
voured their rods.*

Dr. Smith, in his Zoology of South Africa,
gives figures of no less than three varieties of
Naia haje. They do not appear to differ specifi-
cally from the naia of Egypt. Dr. Smith closely
compared them, and he could not perceive greater
differences between some of the individuals from
the Cape and those from Egypt than he had found
between some of those inhabiting Southern Africa.
The young of the Cape reptile corresponded ex-
actly with the figure of the young Egyptian naia
given by Geoffrey.

The rarest of the southern varieties is called by
the colonists Spungh-slang, or spitting-snake, from
its alleged power of ejecting poison to a distance.
Dr. Smith describes this reptile as being of a uni-
form livid, blackish-brown, the livid tinge strong-
est on the under parts, so as to present almost
purplish-slate color, which becomes very dark ant
shining towards the head. He remarks that al
naias of South Africa distil poison from the points
of their fangs when much irritated, and are able
by a forcible expiration, to eject a portion of it to
a considerable distance. Both the Europeans am
natives aver that this snake has the power of cast
ing its poison to a distance of several feet, espec
ially if the ejection be favored with the wim
blowing the same way. They declare that th
reptile often projects it into the eyes of those whi
intrude upon its haunts, and that the injury i
followed by inflammation, which terminates no
unfrequently in loss of sight. It must have bee
.one of these spit-venoms that Mr. Gordon Cum
ming encountered, when watching in one of hi
hiding-holes for the brute aristocracy of the forest
One night, while so engaged, a horrid snake

* Barker's Bible, Gen. c. vii. See also c. iv., wher
it is written that the rod of Moses was turned into a ser
pent.

hich Kleinboy had tried to kill with his loading-
od, flew up at my eye and spat poison into »'t.
mmediately I washed it well out at the fountain.

endured great pain all night, but next day the eye
ame all right.*

A naval officer, who distinguished himself at
he taking of Acre under Sir C. Napier, had a
arrow escape from one of these naias. He was
hooting near the Cape, when he trod close to or
upon one of these horrible reptiles. The snake
ivas coiled round his leg in a moment, and its
nflated head was raised to give the fatal dash,
when his companion, with admirable presence of
mind, placed the muzzle of his gun close to the
Cobra's head, which was drawn back for the pur-
pose of a surer aim and a more vigorous stroke,
tnd blew its head off, without inflicting the slight-
est injury on his grateful friend.

The malignant perseverance of these serpents,
when their anger is once fairly roused, is most
remarkable? Dr. Smith, while walking in the
vicinity of Graham's Town, happened to excite
the attention of a naia, which immediately raised
its head and warned him of his danger by the
strength of its expiration. 'The serpent then
commenced an advance, and the doctor observes
that had he not retired he would, in all probability,
have suffered, if he had not been fortunate enough
to disable it ; which, possibly, would not have
lappened, considering, as he says, that these cobras
are very active. An officer of the Cape Corps,
for whose accuracy the doctor vouches, informed
that distinguished zoologist that he was chased
twice round his wagon by one of them, and that
the pursuit might have been prolonged if a Hotten-
tot had not disabled the enraged reptile by a blow
from a long stick.

The Asiatic form of this genus of serpents is
even more highly developed than that of the Afri-
can species. The general length attained by the
cobra de capello in Ceylon ranges between two
and four feet. Their color varies, and the light-
colored individuals were called, in Dr. Davy's time,
and perhaps are so called still, high-caste snakes,
whilst those of a darker color are designated as
low-caste snakes. The largest seen by the doctor
was nearly six feet long ; but Captain Percival,
in his account of the island (1805) states that this
hooded snake is found there of a length varying
from six to fifteen feet. When enraged and pre-
paring for an attack, the head and body are raised
to a height of three or four feet, and at the same
time the rest of the body is coiled to accelerate the
spring, and add force to it. At this moment the
membrane, which lies along part of the head and the
sides of the neck, and is hardly perceptible till the
animal is irritated, is distended somewhat in the
form of a hood, just as it is in the Egyptian cobras ;
but in the Asiatic nag the hood is marked with a
curious streak or pattern, somewhat in the shape
of a horse-shoe, and resembling a pair of barnacles,
or spectacles without arms, whence its French

* A Hunter's Life in South Africa.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

69

and English name of serpent & lunettes and spec-
tacle-snake. Captain Percival looks upon this
distension of the hood — which, it seems, always
precedes the attack of the reptile — as a warning
to those within the serpent's reach ; and relates
that he had more than once been an eye-witness
of instances where the fatal bite had been avoided
by parties who had thus been put on their guard.
But if this signal of death be not attended to, woe
to the victim ! for after the serpent has exhibited
the fatal sign its motions are too rapid to admit of
escape from its fangs. The captain dwells on
the fondness of these deadly reptiles for music,
and states that, even when newly caught, they
seem to listen with pleasure to the notes, and
writhe themselves into attitudes accordingly.
While so employed, they must remind the specta-
tor, who has duly read up his Copperjield, of Mr.
Uriah Heep. This Uriah-like propensity is duly
taken advantage of by the Indian jugglers, who
bestow some pains in taming the cobras, and at
length teach them to keep time in their writhings
and nutations to the airs which they play on their
flageolets.

Dr. Davy thus describes the mode of operation
in Ceylon, where, as well as on the continent of
India, frequent displays are made by men called
snake-charmers : —

The exhibition is rather a curious one, and not a
little amusing to those who can calmly contemplate
it. The charmer irritates the snake by striking it,
and by rapid threatening motions of his hand ; and
appeases it by his voice^ by gentle circular move-
ments of his hand, and by stroking it gently.

This looks very like magnetism.

He avoids with great agility the attacks of the
animal when enraged, and plays with it and handles
it only when pacified, when he will bring the mouth
of the animal in contact with his forehead, and
draw it over his face. The ignorant vulgar believe
that these men really possess a charm, by which
they thus play without dread, and with impunity,
with danger. The more enlightened, laughing at
this idea, consider the men impostors, and that in
playing their tricks there is no danger to be avoided,
it being removed by the extraction of their poison-
fangs. The enlightened in this instance are mis-
taken, and the vulgar are nearer the truth in their
opinion. I have examined the snakes I have seen
exhibited, and have found their poison-fangs in and
uninjured. These men do possess a charm, though
not a supernatural one, viz., that of confidence and
courage ; acquainted with the habits and disposition
of the snake, they know how averse it is to use the
fatal weapon nature has given it for its defence in
mreine danger, and that it never bites without
.nuch preparatory threatening. Any one possess-
ing the confidence and agility of these men may
irritate them, and I have made the trial more than
once. They will play their tricks with any hooded
snake, whether just taken, or long in confinement,
but with no other kind of poisonous snake.

Captain Knox, in \\isHistoryofCeyton, observes
that the Cingalese have, in the ichneumon, a pow-
erful auxiliary against the multitude of snakes to
which they are exposed. Small as it is, it will, he

says, venture to attack even the cobra de capello,
the poison of whose bite is hardly equalled in dan-
ger by that of any other serpent. Percival relates
that one of these quadrupeds, placed in a close
room where a snake had been previously introduced,
instead of darting at it, ran peeping about the apart-
ment to discover some outlet through which it
might escape ; but, finding none, it returned to its
master, crept into his bosom, and could by no
means be persuaded to face the snake. When,
however, both were removed out of the house into
an open space, the ichneumon instantly flew at the
reptile, and soon destroyed its antagonist. After
the victory the little quadruped suddenly dis-
appeared for a few minutes, and again returned.
Mr. Percival concludes that during its absence it
had found the antidotal herb, and eaten of it ; but
he does not state the grounds for his conclusion.

For the cure of the otherwise mortal bite the
natives allege that the root of the Ophiorrhiza
mungos, the herb pointed out by the ichneumon,
is a specific. Dr. Davy saw and has recorded the
effects of the bite. A cobra, about five feet long,
and about six inches in circumference in the
broadest part, bit a hen in his presence, fixing hia
fangs in the skin covering the lower part of the
pectoral muscle, and keeping its hold for two or
three seconds, when the doctor succeeded in shaking
it ofF. The hen seemed to be but little affected.
She died, however, eight hours after the infliction
of the bite.

Another cobra fastened on the thigh of a young
cock, inflicting a rather severe wound, from which
the blood flowed. Instantly the bird became lame ;
in less than a minute it could no longer stand.
Respiration became hurried and rather laborious in
about five minutes, and some alvine dejections took
place. In about ten minutes the cock had all the
symptoms of being in a comatose state, in which
he continued for about five minutes, his respiration
becoming gradually more feeble and labored. In
seventeen minutes his breathing was hardly per-
ceptible, when he was seized with a convulsive fit,
which recurred four or five times in the course of
the next minute, each fit being less violent than
the former. The last of these proved fatal.

Terrible as these reptiles are, the Cingalese
venerate them rather than dread them, looking on
them as belonging to another world, and appear-
ing here merely as visitors. They regard the
cobra as greatly superior to man, and akin to the
gods, believing it to be possessed of great power.
Impressed with this belief, they refrain from kill-
ing it if they can possibly avoid it, and even when
they find one in the house they will not slay it,
but, putting it into a bag, throw bag and all into
the water ; for they think that it has a good and
generous disposition, and that, unless it be pro-
voked, it will do no harm to man. The cobra
which bit the hen in Dr. Davy's presence, as
above narrated, was found in a bag floating down
the Kalang-ganga.

With these sentiments towards those serpents,
it will be no matter of surprise to find them, or

70

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

snakes nearly allied to them in form and appear-
ance, playing a distinguished part in the Cingalese
theology and system of the universe.

The Naga-bhawene is described as lying under
Asoora-bhawene, and as ten thousand leagues in
circumference. This region is a hollow sphere.
Mountains, hills, lakes, or rivers, there are none.
Vegetation there is none, with one exception, the
tree called Parasattoo : but this single tree amply
supplies the defect ; for it not only prodigally
bears an immense variety of flowers and fruits,
but, in addition, everything that is desirable.
This wondrous country is the abode of a numerous
race of serpents, similar in kind to the hooded
snakes, but of great beauty, size, and power, capa-
ble of passing from one part of the world to
the other, and shining like gods. No light have
they but that transcendent brilliancy which ema-
nates from their own bodies, and thus they enjoy a
perpetual day infinitely exceeding ours in bright-
ness. These beings, illuminating all around them,
like so many Radiant Boys,* were, during their
former lives on earth, persons of great purity and
goodness, and almost deserving of becoming goo's.
But, alas for poor human nature ! their high vir-
tues were sullied by some vice, that of malice
having been predominant, and they were doomed
to their splendid but reptile forms. But, snakes
though they be, they are Bhoodists, are possessed
of a relic, and worship in temples. They lead an
apolaustic life, residing in well-furnished houses,
enjoying society, eating and drinking according to
their pleasure, for they have only to form a wish,
and they immediately have any article of food they
want ; only it always makes its appearance in the
form of a frog.

They live under a monarchy, and, like the Cin-
galese, are distributed into castes. Their king,
Mahakilla-naga-rajaya, is in every way superior to
the rest. With his powerful assistance the gods
and Asooras churned the milky sea. Mahakilla
then wound himself round a rock, and they, pulling
at his two extremities, set the mass in motion and
accomplished their work. It is fortunate for the
human race that these snakes are naturally mild
and benevolent, and do harm only when pro-
voked; for, if they were so disposed, they could
annihilate the whole of the inhabitants of earth by
a single blast of their poisonous breaths.

The Cingalese have a legend touching the deadly
enmity which is said to exist between the noya
(naia) and the polonga, another most venomous
snake, of which the natives have the utmost hor-
ror. The late Sir Hudson Lowe graphically de-
scribed to me the terror of the natives when they
beheld one, and the shrieking tone in which they
cried out its name.

But the legend ?

A noya and a polonga (nintipolonga, or tic-
polonga, as it is generally termed) met, once upon
a time, in a dry season when water was very
scarce. The polonga, almost dying with thirst,

* The Irish story of the apparition of the Radiant Boy
is alluded to.

asked the noya where he might find water. Now
the noya had a little before met with a vessel of
water, wherein an infant lay playing ; for it is
usual with the Cingalese to wash their children
in a vessel or large bowl of water, and then leave
their babes to tumble and flounce about. Well,
at this vessel the noya quenched his thirst, but,
as he was drinking, the child, as it lay sporting
therein, hit the serpent on the head with his hand.
The good-natured noya, knowing there was no
malice in the case, bore the blow patiently, and
having drunk his fill went his way without harm-
ing the child.

So the noya told the polonga where this vessel
was, but knowing him to be a surly, hasty crea-
ture, and being desirous withal to preserve the
child, made him promise not to hurt the child,
who, the noya added, was very likely to give him
a pat on the head, as he had done to him. Now
the mind of the noya misgave him ; he half-re-
pented that he had told the polonga where to find
the water, and went after him, fearing his touchy
temper. His worst fears were realized ; for, as
the polonga was drinking, the child patted him on
the head, and the irritable serpent bit the little
innocent on the hand and killed it. This the noya
saw, and, burning with indignation, bitterly re-
proached the polonga with his baseness, fought
him, slew him, and devoured him. And so these
serpents when they meet do to this day, fighting
to the death, and the conqueror eating the body
of the vanquished. The Cingalese, in allusion to
this determined hostility, have a proverb, which
they quote when they see men irreconcilable,
comparing them to a noya and a polonga.

The cerastes, it will be remembered, was the
other venomous serpent that prominently figured
in the exhibition of our Arab snake-charmers at
the gardens of the Zoological Society.

The length of a full-grown cerastes is about
fourteen inches.' The ground color of the upper
parts varies in different individuals, being either
yellowish-red, spotted, and variegated with other
colors ; of a darker hue, differing but little from
the tint of the spots, which, in such case, are seen
indistinctly ; or of a steel or ashy gray, with much
darker spots tinted with the same hue. Beneath
the color is a pale rose with a pearly lustre. The
head is very distinct, and the angles of the jaws
diverge considerably, giving great width to the
hinder part, while the anterior portion is narrower.
The nose is rounded ; the nostrils are situated
near its apex, each in the centre of a thick pro-
jecting scale. The eyebrows are arched, and near
the middle of each is a slender, pointed, slightly
recurved spine or horn, from which the serpent
takes its name. The markings on the head, as
well as those on the body, vary in different indi-
viduals. The body is thick in proportion to its
length, and the tail is short, tapering rather sud-
denly, and pointed.

Its habits are most indolent ; buried in the burn-
ing sand, it nurses its sweltering venom till it is
roused by hunger or trampled upon, arid then woe

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURAT 1ST.

71

to the intruder ! Its inactivity is thrown off, anc
its movements brisk. When once it seizes the
offender, it retains its hold with great obstinacy,
requiring considerable force to detach it. After
a naia has inflicted a wound it makes haste to
escape, but the cerastes and other vipers, even
<vhen detached by force and thrown upon the
ground, remain on the spot, or retreat very slowly
from it.

But what is the use of the horns ?

Old authors state that it lies buried in the sand,
with the tips of the horns just projecting above
the surface, as a bait for the birds, somewhat
after the manner of the anglers among fishes
These last lie concealed in the mud or sand, leav-
jng the long fibres that spring from the anterior
part of the head out to attract the smaller fry,
which they then devour. The birds, they say
take the tips of the serpent's horns for little worms
or grubs, approach for the purpose of feeding on
them, and fall a prey to the serpent.

We find the latent and subtle habits of the ce-
rastes alluded to in the forty-ninth chapter of Gen-
esis, containing Jacob's prophecy relative to his
offspring.

Dan shall bee a serpent by the way, an adder by
the path, biting the horse heeles, so that his rider
shall fall backward.*

The patriarch, by this comparison with the art-
ful cerastes, intimates that the Danites should have
their revenge upon their enemies, and extend their
conquests more by stratagem than open bravery.

Nicander also refers to this habit of lying hid
in the sands, or in a wheel-track, and biting the
horses or cattle that pass near or over it.

This African speciesf has the character of be-
ing able to abstain from water longer than almost
any other serpent. Indolently nestled in the arid
sand, long periods elapse between the falling of
the rain upon its abode. The old French quatrain,
printed under the Portrait de la Ceraste, alludes to
this abstinence : —

Ceste ceraste a comme deux cornettes
Dessus les yeux, et se passe de boire
Plus que serpent, qu'il est possible croire.
Rempliz sont de poison telles bestes.t

Both the naia and the cerastes have been named
as the asp which saved Cleopatra from the degra-
dation of a Roman triumph ; but there can be lit-
tle doubt that the cerastes was the " poor venom-
ous fool" to which the Egyptian queen appealed
" to be angry and dispatch." Some, indeed, de-
clare that she did not apply the asp at all, but
inoculated herself with the poison by means of a
needle ; and Galen relates from other authors, that
she killed herself by pouring the venom of an asp
into a wound made in her arm by her own teeth.
It seems, at first, to be a strange ^dispensation
that creatures should be sent on earth armed with
venom, —

* Barker's Bible, Gen. xlix. 17.

t It is found in the south as well as in the north of Africa.

t fortraits d'Oyseaux, Serpens, fyc. 1577.

Whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body ;

but if serpents were to be created as part of the
system of the universe — and the links in the ani-
mal chain would be largely imperfect if such forms
did not exist — it becomes a necessity that some of
the race should be so armed, in order to their tak-
ing their prey, and for their self-preservation
when attacked.

Still, when one reads the catalogue of serpents
which Cato and his army encountered in the
Libyan deserts, where the poet* makes every bite
of every serpent followed by the death of a man,
the visitation is startling. And really this black
list, from which it would seem that the cerastes
and the other deadly snakes were leagued with
Caesar, (though it may be rather superfluous in
specific description, and the different ages and
states of one serpent may have been multiplied
into many distinct species,) should not be looked
on as a mere poetical fiction ; for it was evidently
drawn from nature, though somewhat highly-col-
ored.

Many hundred years after the Pharsatia was
written, Paul Herman had in his museum at
Leyden, preserved in alcohol, and duly labelled
and catalogued, one venomous serpent whose bite
induced a deadly sleep, another which killed by an
unquenchable thirst, a third whose injected poison
was immediately followed by hemorrhages from
all the pores of the body — so that the doomed
patient presented the appearance of that king in
his dying hours who had revelled in the horrors
of the St. Bartholomew — and so on.

Dr. Mead truly lays it down that, in all acci-
dents of this nature, the mischief does not stop at
the part affected, but is carried further, even
through the whole body. In the learned and ob-
servant doctor's time the nature of the absorbent
system was not so well known as it is in ours,
though there is a great deal still to learn.

Dr. Mead was of opinion that this universal
communication was effected by the great activity
of the nervous fluid, one part of which being in-
fected immediately tainted all the rest. Thus,
according to his theory, the whole system of
nervous expansions is drawn into spasms and con-
vulsions ; and, according to the different nature of
the parts to which they belong, different symptoms
are produced. In the stomach and intestines these
spasms cause sickness, vomitings, and gripes ; in
the brain, deliria, sleepiness, and epileptic fits ;
in the heart, intermissions of the arterial pulse,
palpitations, and swoonings ; in the lungs, diffi-
culty of breathing, with strangling and suffoca-
tions j in the liver, by the spasmodic contraction
of the biliary ducts, the bile is returned into the
blood, and makes a jaundice ; in the kidneys the
same disposition of the urinary canals interrupts
the secretion of the urine, and makes it quite
irregular. In short, as he says, the animal econo-

* Lucan.

72

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

my is all disturbed ; and though different poisons
may show their most remarkable effects in differ-
ent parts, and these according to the violence of
the hurt, may appear in different degrees, yet the
symptoms always make it plain that the first bad
impression is made upon the animal spirits.

When we presently come to consider the symp-
toms that follow the bite of one of the venomous
serpents — the common viper, for example — we
shall find them analogous to those that follow the
seizures in plagues, cholera, fevers, and other
pestilential diseases, where faintness, giddiness,
palpitations of the heart, and all the other disorders
which show that the nervous system is affected,
are manifested ; and, in truth, the sufferer in such
cases is laboring under the effect of a real poison.

The symptoms which follow the bite of a viper,
when it fastens either one or both its greater teeth
in any part of the body, are an acute pain in the
place wounded, with a swelling at first red, but
afterwards livid, which by degrees spreads further
to the neighboring parts ; with great faintness, and
a quick though low and sometimes interrupted
pulse, great sickness at the stomach, with bilious,
convulsive vomitings, cold sweats, and sometimes
pains about the navel ; and if the cure be not
speedy, death itself, unless the strength of nature
prove sufficient to overcome these disorders ; and
though it does, the swelling still continues inflamed
for some time ; nay, in some cases more consider-
ably, upon the abating of the other symptoms, than
at the beginning. And often from the small wound
runs a sanious liquor, and little pustules are raised
about it ; the color of the whole skin, in less than
an hour, is changed yellow, as if the patient had
the jaundice.*

The rapidity with which animal life may be
overcome by the poison of venomous snakes is
well illustrated by Mr. Bell, the present secretary
of the Royal Society ; and, by the way, in one of
his dissections he had proof of the danger which
may be incurred in investigating their anatomy.

The head of a large rattlesnake had been taken
off immediately after death. Some hours after-
wards Mr. Bell was carefully dissecting the
poison-apparatus ; but though so long a time had
elapsed since the head was cut away, Mr. Bell
found that the poison continued to be secreted so
fast as to require the occasional use of a piece of
rag or sponge ; and he remarks that there could
not have been altogether less than six or eight
drops of the deadly fluid distilled from the gland
in the severed head.

As might be expected, if a succession of
wounds be given by a poisonous snake, the crea-
ture last stricken has the best chance of recovery.
One of Mr. Bell's friends had received a rattle-
snake from America, and upon the principle
contained in the apophthegm, Fiat exper imentum in
corpore vili, a pack of wretched rats were selected
for the occasion. One was put into the cage with
the serpent, which immediately struck it. The
rat was dead in two minutes. A second was then
placed in the cage, to the furthest corner of which

* Mead On Poisons.

it retreated, uttering piercing cries of distress.
The serpent, conscious probably of the late loss
of virus, lay quiet ; but when about half an hour
had elapsed, it was irritated, and then struck the
second rat, which showed no symptoms of having
received the poison for several minutes ; and
twenty minutes after the bite elapsed before this
victim died. Then a third very large rat was
introduced into the cage. This showed no signs
of terror, and the snake did not appear to notice
the intruder, though both were watched through-
out the evening, and at night they were left
together. The next morning Mr. Bell's friend
rose early and visited the cage. But the tables
were now turned. The snake lay dead and muti-
lated ; for the rat had feasted upon the flesh of its
back.

Some of our readers may remember the dis-
tressing case of a carpenter who came to see the
show of a real live rattlesnake. Anxious proba-
bly to hear the serpent's rattle, the carpenter
teased it with his rule, which, unfortunately, he
dropped into the cage. He tried to regain it,
and while he was attempting to reach it the snake
bit him in the hand. He was taken to one of our
hospitals, had the assistance of some of the first
surgeons in London, and resisted the effects of the
poison so long that hopes were entertained. But
the shock to the constitution was too great, and
after lingering many days he sank under the con-
sequences of the bite.

Dr. Mead relates a similar case, with a much
happier result : —

A man was bit on -jne of his fingers by a rattle-
snake, just then brought over from Virginia. He
immediately put his fingers into his mouth and
sucked the wound. His under-lip and tongue were
presently swelled to a great degree ; he faltered
in his speech, and in some measure lost his senses.
He then drank a large quantity of oil, and warm
water upon it, by which he vomited plentifully.
A live pigeon was cut in two and applied to the
finger. Two hours after this, the flesh about the
wound was cut out, and the part burnt with a hot
iron, and the arm embrocated with warm oil. He
then recovered his speech and senses. His arm
continued swelled the next day, but by common
applications soon grew easy, and the patient suf-
fered no further mischief.

As the poison of this snake (continues Dr. Mead)
is more quick and deadly than any other that we
know, a remedy for this will most certainly prove
effectual against that of smaller vipers, and all
other creatures of this kind. The other applica-
tions here made use of (the vomit excepted) could
be of no service. The pigeon, the cutting and
burning the part two hours after the wound had
been made, did no good. Embrocating the arm
with oil only abated the swelling.

However right the worthy doctor may be touch-
ing the pigeon, the excision, and the cautery, it is
by no means clear that he has not leaped some-
what hastily to his conclusion touching the inutil-
ity of the embrocation. Besides their famous
axungia vipcrina, the viper-catchers in after-times
had the greatest ^nnfidence in olive-oil as a specific

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

73

against the bite of those reptiles. Relying on its
efficacy, they suffered themselves to be bitten, and
would let the symptoms go on till they became
absolutely dangerous, or, as they said, till the poi-
son was gaining on their heart, and then swallow-
ing draughts of the oil and rubbing the wounded
limb with it over a chafing-dish of coals, became
perfectly cured. The better opinion latterly seems
to have been that the embrocation was the efficient
part of the process, and that the oil which was
swallowed did little if anything towards the cure.
It is true that, in consequence of the account in
Phil. Trans. (No. 443,) of an experiment, in
which it was said that common oil rubbed into the
wound had cured the bite of a viper, the physi-
cians of the French Academy are said to have
made several trials of the oil with all possible
care, and they pronounced it to be ineffectual ex-
cept as a fomentation to the swollen part.

Notwithstanding this concurrence of opinion,
the viper-catchers of the latter part of the last
century used olive-oil as an infallible remedy, and
I have myself seen it exhibited in the case of a dog
which was severely bitten in the leg by one of
these serpents. The oil may be a specific against
the bite of the common viper only ; for it should
be remembered that Linnaeus, when in Scania, was
applied to by a woman who had been bitten by a
Chersea. He administered the oil according to
the prescribed forms. But the poor woman died
in the greatest agonies. This remedy seems,
however, to be effectual against the acrid exuda-
tions which emanate from the pustules of a toad.
White relates that a quack ate one of those rep-
tiles at Selborne to make the country people stare,
and that afterwards he drank oil.

But Dr. Mead was a physician deserving of all
confidence, and we shall see that even in his mode
of treatment the oil is not discarded.

The doctor then tells us that " the first thing
to be done upon the bite of a viper of any kind is,
that the patient should suck the wound himself,
if he can come at it ; if he cannot, another per-
son should do this good office for him. Whoever
does it, ought (to prevent any inflammation of the
lips and tongue, from the heat of the poison) to
wash his mouth well beforehand with warm oil,
and hold some of this in the mouth while the
suction is performing."

After this he prescribes an emetic, (Rod. Ipe-
cacuan.,) "encouraged in the working with oil
and warm water."

This is conformable, as he observes, to the
practice of the Virginian Indians, who were said
to cure the bite of the rattlesnake by sucking the
wound, and taking immediately a large quantity
of a decoction of the rattlesnake root, which acts as
a strong emetic, and laying to the part the same
root chewed. Piso states that the Indians use as
remedies against the bite of that snake and others,
the crushed head of the serpent applied as a
plaster to the wound, round which they place the
green leaves of the tobacco plant.

Celsus recommends the application of dry salt

to the wound ; and this Dr. Mead thinks promises
somewhat more than the cautery, but not much.
The so-called virtues of the celebrated Oriental
snake-stones, said to be taken from the head of the
cobra de capello, are mere fallacies.

This (says Dr. Mead) Signor Redi, Monsieur
Charas, and myself have experienced. They will,
indeed, when applied, stick to the wound for some
time ; being, as appears from their make, not
natural but factitious bodies, compounded most
probably of calcined bones and some testaceous
substances mixed together ; but when they drop
off, are found to have imbibed nothing of the
venom.

The remedy of the viper-catchers, long kept by
them a close secret, finds greater favor in the eyes
of the doctor. Depending upon their specific,
those employed in this trade, which in the days
of viper-broth and viper-wine was very brisk,
were no more afraid of a bite than of a common
puncture, curing themselves immediately by the
application of the axungia vipcrina to the wound,
and to this day viper's fat boiled down is con-
sidered in some countries equally infallible ; thus,
as in the case of applying the crushed head of the
serpent to the wound that it had made, exhibiting
the union of the bane and the antidote in the same
offending body.

Dr. Mead enraged a viper and caused it to bite
a dog in the nose. Both teeth were struck deep
in. The dog howled bitterly, and the part began
to swell. The doctor diligently applied the
axungia, and next day the dog was very well.

But, unfortunately for this poor dog, some of
the sceptical gentlemen who saw the experiment
ascribed the cure more to the dog's saliva admin-
istered in licking himself, than to the virtue of
the fat. So he was bit again in the tongue and
the remedy withheld. He died within four or five
hours. The doctor made at another time a like
trial with the same success.

As this axungia (says Dr. Mead) consists of
clammy and viscid parts, which are withal more
penetrating and active than most oily substances ;
so these, without all doubt, may, if immediately
applied, involve and, as it were, sheathe the volatile
salts of the venomous liquor, and thus prevent their
shooting out into those crystalline spicula which
we have observed to be the main instruments of
that deadly mischief that attends the bite. But
even this cure ought not to be relied on. 'Tis
safest to use the method we have mentioned ; and,
moreover, if the patient feels any sickness, faint-
ness, or any of the. nervous symptoms we have
described, he must be put into bed, and a sweat
must be promoted by cordial medicines, particu-
larly the Confect. Ralegh, and the salt of vipers,
or, in want of this, salt of hartshorn, given in
warm wine. I have often experienced the good
effects of this proceeding ; and, after all the pre-
tensions of the cure by oil, in the case newly
related, the man was really not recovered without
these means.

And so stands the case ; animal fat versus
vegetable oil. The former may, as the doctor
says, be more penetrating ; and we know that the

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

74

common elder ointment has been applied to dogs
and cattle bitten by vipers with the best success ;
but olive-oil is, nevertheless, not to be despised.
The viperine remedy probably had its origin in
the notion that the best remedy for a venomous
wound was to apply the crushed creature that had
inflicted it to the injured part.

The demand for vipers, when viper-wine and
viper-broth were all the fashion for invigorating
worn-out or vitiated constitutions, was very great,
and they formed a part of the stores of every fash-
ionable apothecary's dispensary. Supplies were
regularly sent in by the viper-catchers, and I re-
member hearing a story of a large box full of
these reptiles having been received by one of
these helpers of men in our town. The lid was
not properly secured, and the imprisoned serpents
wriggled out, finding their way up stairs, down
stairs, and in my lady's chamber, and frightening
the maids and apprentices to death , some of whom
found a viper or two comfortably coiled up between
the sheets, just as they were about to step into bed.

The viperine remedy had classical authority for
its ministration, nor did he who had the care of
the health of Octavius Caesar find it fail.

The renowned physitian, Antonius Musa, having
certain patients in cure under his hand, who had
ulcers that were thought incurable, prescribed them
to eat vipers' flesh ; and wonderfull it is how soone
he healed them cleane by that means.*

Nor was the great Greek practitioner Craterus
less successful. He was called in to a wretched
slave whose skin fell from his bones, advised him
to eat viper dressed like fish, and happily cured
his patient. Galen and Aretaeus speak loudly in
the praise of such a remedy in cases of elephan-
tiasis, and the former relates many stories of cures
of that disease by viper-wine. The native of
Tonquin, if we are to believe Dampier, treats his
friends with an infusion of snakes and scorpions,
accounting the arrack in which they have been
digested not only an invigorating cordial, but an
antidote against leprosy and all poisons. Dr.
Mead, who mentions this as well as the other
instances above noticed, states that he was told by
a learned physician, who resided many years at
Bengal, that it is a constanjt practice there to
order in diet the cobra de capello to persons
wasted by long distempers, and adds that the
physicians in Italy and France very commonly
prescribe the broth and jelly of vipers for invigor-
ation and purification of the blood. He evidently
thinks very highly of the remedy, and expresses
his opinion that our physicians deal too cautiously
or sparingly with it. The ancient Romans of
distinction, it seems, were seldom without a prep-
aration of this kind, which they took as an in-
vigorator, and as conducive to long and healthy
life. The capons which were served up to the
beautiful wife of Sir Kenelm Digby were fed
upon vipers.

A word or two upon the poison and its nature,

* Holland's Pliny.

and I have done. Dr. Mead observes that the
venomous juice itself is of so inconsiderable a
quantity that it is no more than one good drop
that does the execution. How it operates does
not seem to be quite satisfactorily made out.

Ray relates that a gentleman resident in India,
having friends at his house, sent for one of those
natives who carry about serpents to show experi-
ments upon the difference of their poisons. The
first serpent which the exhibitor produced was of
a very large size, which he affirmed to be quite
harmless; and, to prove his assertion, he made a
ligature upon his arm and provoked the serpent to
bite him. Having collected the blood which
flowed from the bite to the quantity of half a
spoonful, he spread it upon his thigh. He then
produced a smaller one, which was a cobra de
capello, and gave a terrible account of the effects
of its poison. In support of his assertion, he,
holding the neck of the serpent very tight, pressed
out of the vesicle of the jaws about half a drop of
its contents, and put it upon the coagulated blood
on his thigh. A great ebullition and effervescence
immediately ensued in the manner of a fermenta-
tion, and the blood was changed into a yellow
fluid, confirming the observation that the bite of a
viper produces the jaundice.

The experiment made by Dr. Mead, however,
gave a very different result : —

About half an ounce of human blood received in-
to a warm glass, in which were five or six grains
of the viperine poison newly ejected, was not vis-
ibly altered either in color or consistence. It then
was and remained undistinguishable from the same
blood, taken into another glass, in which was no
poison at all.

The doctor gives the following account of the
microscopic appearances presented by the poi-
son : —

Under a microscope at first sight 1 could discover
nothing but a parcel of small salts nimbly floating
in the liquor ; but in a very short time the appear-
ance was changed, and these saline particles were
now shot out, as it were, into crystals of an incredi-
ble tenuity and sharpness, with something like
knots here and there, from which they seemed to
proceed ; so that the whole texture did, in a man-
ner, represent a spider's web, though infinitely
finer and more minute ; and yet withal so rigid
were these pellucid spicula or darts, that they re-
mained unaltered upon my glass for several
months.

Redi found that the dried poison, when diluted
with water, was still active and deleterious.

But terrible as is the effect of the attack of
these cruel scourges, the bite or the instillation of
the poison into a wound are the only things to be
dreaded : —

Morsu virus habent, et fatum dente minantur
Pocula morte carent.

Tozzi, a viper-charmer, astonished the Grand
Duke Ferdinand and the natural philosophers
who were present with him, who had been speak-
ing of the certain death which would await any

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

person»vvho might swallow the poison of the, viper
by mistake, instead of spirit of wine or water, by
boldly drinking a considerable portion of it.
They all looked for his instant decease, but he
was no more affected than he would have been by
taking so much water.

Dr. Mead relates a similar experiment : —

We resolved to end our poison inquiries by tast-
ing the venomous liquor. Accordingly, having
diluted a quantity of it with a very little warm
water, several of us ventured to put some of it upon
the tip of our tongues. We all agreed that it
tasted very sharp and fiery, as if the tongue had
been struck through with something scalding or
burning. This sensation went not off in two or
three hours ; and one gentleman, who would not be
satisfied without trying a large drop undiluted,
found his tongue swelled with a little inflammation,

. 75

and the soreness lasted two days. But neither his
nor our boldness was attended with any ill conse-
quence.

Those who make such experiments, as well as
those who suck wounds occasioned by the bite of
venomous serpents, should be quite certain that
the skin of the lips and fauces is unbroken, and
that there is no wound or abrasion about the gums
or tongue, otherwise fatal consequences might en-
sue. But if all be right, the immunity with
which the venom of serpents may be taken into
the stomach ceases to be surprising when we re-
member that the deadly wourali poison is given in
the country which produces it as a tonic with
success, and that milk, so nutritious when taken
as food, if it be injected into the veins, is
mortal.

THE Reptile-house in the garden of the Zoo-
logical Society in London has proved to be of no
small attraction. I remember when the unhappy
carnivora were doomed to live therein, breathing
their own impurities, and dragging on a miserable
existence as long as their constitutions enabled
them to bear up against the miasmata that em-
bittered their shortened, incarcerated lives. In
vain was every argument enforced against the
continuation of this condemned cell for carnivo-
rous captives. For a long time the answer to all
remonstrances was after the reply of those who
still, in their despair, cling to the Smithfield
abomination. The place was provided for the
animals, and they must bear it as they could — no
matter what the cost, or the suffering, or the in-
tolerable nuisance to all who were blest or cursed
with noses. At last, the zoological John Bull
was roused. Like his political brother, he
showed his capacity for bearing a great deal, and
was treated accordingly by those who did not
know the nature of the being with whom they
had to reckon. The zoological bull gave signs
of kicking, and then it was very wisely con-
sidered that there was something in his remon-
strance, and a new den for the carnivorous quad-
rupeds was built, where they breathe the free air
of heaven, and live long and comparatively happy
accordingly, notwithstanding the cantankerous
London clay, so fatal to the race. Their old
roofed dens, every one of which looked into a
close room, odoriferous with ammonia and all the
rest of it, to an intensity not to be described,
were appropriated to the reptiles whose lower
organization and aptitude for heat, combined with
the comparative absence of anything that could
taint the air, offered no similar offehce to the
senses, while the lives of the animals themselves
were not placed in jeopardy ; and so, notwith-
standing the croakings and forebodings, this
reptile-house has become one of the most popular
exhibitions of that most popular vivarium. At
the risk of being thought somewhat presumptu-
ous, I beg to recommend this instance to the con-
sideration of those whose higher destinies are

I

interwoven with zoological John's political broth-
er. The latter, like the former, is, as we have
already hinted, long suffering ; but when he be-
comes restive in earnest, it is time to look out
and take warning, or, depend upon it, he will
toss and gore several persons.

The first remark made by an accurate observer ,
on looking around the apartment now dedicated
to the reptilia, will, probably, refer to the fixed
attitude in which they remain. There they stand
or lie, motionless as statues. Here and there ix
snake may occasionally be seen to creep or raisu
itself, and a lizard to change its position, but,
generally speaking, especially in the broad day,
they are perfectly still ; and there are times when
not one is in motion behind the glass cases in
which they are confined. At such periods, thosij
may be excused who have taken the whole of th>3
reptiles in this room for stuffed specimens. The
inhabitants of that Oriental city who figure so
awfully in the Arabian tale, turned into stone for
their crimes, with the exception of the lonely one
whose voice is heard reading the Koran in the
midst of the petrified sinners, could not have looked
more lifeless.

Why is this 1

Because all predatory reptiles, especially snakes
and lizards, take their prey by surprise ; and,
added to this motionless habit, the animal's haunt,
when on the lookout for prey, coincides generally
so harmoniously with its color, that the bird or
insect fearlessly approaches and is caught. Place,
as a familiar example, a toad in a melon-bed — a
plan frequently adopted if the bed be infested with
emmets. These insects approach the motionless
toad, whose hue corresponds with the color of the
earth of the bed, without suspicion, and are taken
by the tongue of the reptile with a motion too
quick for the eye to "follow. All that can be
seen is the approach of the emmet within a cer-
tain distance — within, in fact, tongue-shot, and its
there vanishing. The mechanism of this appa-
ratus, by means of which the toad takes its prey,
will be noticed hereafter.

Throughout the animal creation, the adaptation

76

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

of the color of the creature to its haunts is worthy
of admiration, as tending to its preservation.
The colors of insects, and of a multitude of the
smaller animals, contribute to their concealment.
Caterpillars which feed on leaves are generally
either green, or have a large proportion of that
hue in the color of their coats. As long as they
remain still, how difficult it is to distinguish a
grasshopper or young locust from the herbage or
leaf on which it rests. The butterflies that flit
about among flowers are colored like them. The
small birds which frequent hedges have backs of a
greenish or brownish green hue, and their bellies
are generally whitish, or light colored, so as to
harmonize with the sky. ' Thus they become less
visible to the hawk or cat that passes above or
below them. The wayfarer across the fields
almost treads upon tlie skylark before he sees it
rise warbling to heaven's gate. The goldfinch or
thistlefinch passes much of its time among flow-
ers, and is vividly colored accordingly. The
partridge can hardly be distinguished from the
fallow or stubble upon or among which it crouch-
es, and it is considered an accomplishment among
sportsmen to have a good eye for finding a hare
sitting. In northern countries the winter dress
of the hares and ptarmigans is white, to prevent
detection among the snows of those inclement
regions.

If we turn to the waters, the same design is
evident. Frogs even vary their color according
to that of the mud or sand that forms the bottom
of the ponds or streams which they frequent —
nay, the tree-frog (Hyla viridis) takes its specific
name from the color, which renders it so difficult
to see it among the leaves, where it adheres by
the cupping-glass-like processes at the end of its
toes. It is the same with fish, especially those
which inhabit the fresh waters. Their backs,
with the exception of gold and silver fish, and a
few others, are comparatively dark ; and some
practice is required before they are satisfactorily
made out, as they come like shadows and so
depart under the eye of the spectator. A little
boy once called out to a friend to " come and see,
for the bottom of the brook was moving along."
The friend came, and saw that a thick shoal of
gudgeons, and roach, and dace, was passing. It is
difficult to detect the " ravenous luce," as old Izaak
calls the pike, with its dark green and mottled
back and sides, from the similarly tinted weeds
among which the fresh-water shark lies at the
watch, as motionless as they. Even when a tear-
ing old trout, a six or seven-pounder, sails, in his
wantonness, leisurely up stream, with his back-fin
partly above the surface, on the look-out for a fly,
few, except a well-entered fisherman, can tell
what shadowy form it is that ripples the wimpling
water. But the bellies of fish are white, or
nearly so ; thus imitating in a degree the color
of the sky, to deceive the otter, which generally
takes its prey from below, swimming under the
intended victim. Nor is this design less manifest
in the color and appearance of some of the larger

terrestrial animals ; for the same principle seems
to be* kept in view, whether regard be had to the
smallest insects or the quadrupedal giants of the
land.

I have often traced (writes an excellent observer)
a remarkable resemblance between the animal and
the general appearance of the locality in which it
is found. This I first remarked at an early period
of my life, when entomology occupied a part of my
attention. No person following this interesting
pursuit can fail to observe the extraordinary like-
ness which insects bear to the various abodes in
which they are met with. Thus among the long
green grass we find a variety of long green insects,
whose legs and antennae so resemble the shoots
emanating from the stalks of the grass, that it
requires a practised eye to distinguisli them.
Throughout sandy districts, varieties of insects are
met with of a color similar to the sand which they
inhabit. Among the green leaves of the various
trees of the forest innumerable leaf-colored insects
are to be found ; while, closely adhering to the
rough, gray bark of these forest-trees, we observe
beautifully-colored, gray-looking moths, of various
patterns, yet altogether so resembling the bark a.-
to be invisible to the passing observer. In likr
manner, among quadrupeds, I have traced a con
siderable analogy ; for, even in the case of the stu
pendous elephant, the ashy color of his hide &»
corresponds with the general appearance of ths
gray thorny jungles which he frequents throughout
the day, that a person unaccustomed to hunting
elephants, standing on a commanding situation,
might look down upon a herd and fail to detect
their presence. And further, in the case of the
giraffe, which is invariably met with among ven-
erable forests, where innumerable blasted and
weatherbeaten trunks and stems occur, I have re-
peatedly been in doubt as to the presence of a troop
of them, until I had recourse to my spy-glass ;
and, on referring the case to my savage attendants,
I have known even their optics to fail — at one time
mistaking their dilapidated trunks for camelopards,
and again confounding real camelopards with thoso
aged veterans of the forest.*

The Wizard of the North, who had a keen eye
for the harmonies of Nature — and what poet, who
is fond of field-sports, has not 1 — frequently mani-
fests the results of his observation on animals and
their haunts in his immortalities, whether of verse
or prose.

So far was heard the mighty knell
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostril to the wind,
Listed before, aside, behind,
Then couched him down beside the hind,
And q-iaked among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound so dull and stern.

When a stag lies with his neck stretched out
and his horns lying backward in such a lair, or
among other low cover, none but a very experi-
enced stalker is likely to detect him.

I remember, one very hard winter, passing more
than once, in beating over a fallow field, what I
at first took for a clod, but which proved to be a
partridge frozen to death. As for the young of
many birds who make their nests on the ground,

* A Hunter's Life in South Africa* By Roualeyn
Gordon Gumming, Esq.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

77

their colors so closely resemble the localities in
which they are found, that they are hardly to be
observed by any but a very keen eye. Thus
White, writing of the stone-curlew, (Charadrius
csdicnemus,) remarks, that the bird lays its eggs —
usually two, never more than three — on the bare
ground, without any protection, so that the coun-
tryman in stirring his fallows often destroys
them.

The young (he adds) run immediately from the
egg like partridges, &c. ; and are withdrawn to
some flinty field by the dam, where they skulk
among the stones, which are their best security ;
for their feathers are so exactly of the color of our
gray-spotted flints, that the most exact observer,
unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may
be eluded.*

The similarity of color to that of their haunts,
combined with the motionless habit above alluded
to, serves, then, in the case of the reptiles, the
double purpose of concealment for safety and lying
in wait for prey, so as to give the victim the least
possible warning. Few can see the snake in the
grass, and the frogs on which it dines least of all.
The sportsman treads on the viper, coiled up on a
bright windy day at the edge of the copse, before
he is aware of the presence of the reptile ; and so
does his dog, unless he is shooting with a pointer,
which, if he have a good nose and the wind, will
infallibly stand as stiff as a crutch, and as if he
had a whole covey before him.

The ink that traced the last sentence on the
paper was hardly dry when in came a friend, who
related that two of his dogs, pointers, had been
bitten by a viper, that lay coiled up in the grass
by the banks of a canal near the house in which I
write. The serpent struck twice, and each time
bit the dog attacked on the lip. The dog first
struck — a very fine pointer, with a dash of the
bloodhound in him — staggered, was frightfully
•swollen, and his system so much affected that
fears were entertained for his life. Copious doses
of oil, and embrocations of the same with laud-
anum, however, effected the cure. The mother
of this dog received the second bite, but in her
case the symptoms were much mitigated ; there
was no staggering, and, as is usual in such cases,
the virus must have been much diminished before
the second wound was given. The viper, on this
occasion, corroborated the statements of those who
lay it down as an axiom that the true vipers, un-
like other venomous serpents — the cobra, for in-
stance— do not quit the scene of action after their
murderous attacks. There it remained, and the
master of the dogs took up a great stone and cast
it upon the viper, without, however, crippling it,
owing, probably, to some inequality in the surface
of the ground whereon it rested. Then, but not
till then, it made off. The owner of the dogs told
me, that when they were bitten they uttered no
cry. In general, they howl piteously when they
feel the bite.

* Selborne.

Letter XVI.
6

In this case we have again an instance of the
virtues of oil, insisted on in a former chapter.
Cato's remedy was not so simple, for he says,
(c. 102,) that if a serpent has stung an ox or any
other quadruped, one must pound an acetabulum
of melanthion, called by the physicians melanthion
of Smyrna, in an hcmina of old wine, pour it into
the nostrils of the beast, and lay hogs' dung to the
wound. Nor is the savory remedy applicable to
the restoration of brutes only, according to his
experience ; for he confidently directs the same
remedy to be applied to a human creature, if oc-
casion require it. One may conceive the sort of
reward reaped by the bubulcus by whose neglect
the ox was exposed to the venomous bite, when
the former was subjected to the tender mercies of
the ergastularius in the prison* of the villa, under
a dispensation which placed the life of the slave
absolutely at the disposal of his master.

In that part of The Way to get Wealth f inti-
tuled " The English House-wife," dedicated to
" The Right Honorable and most excellent Lady,
Francis, Countesse Dowager of Exeter," with the
running title of " The English House-wives
Houshold Physick," we find a different formula
set forth : —

To help all manner of swelling or aches in what
part of the body soever it be, or stinging of any
venomous beast, as Adder, Snake, or such-like,
take Horehound, Smallage, Porrets, smal Mallows,
and wild Tansey of each alike quantity, and bruise
them or cut them small ; then seeth them altogether
in a pan with milk, oatmeal, and as much Sheepa
suet, or Dearessuet as a Hens egge, and let it boyl
till it be a thick plaister, then lay it upon a blew
wollen cloath, and lay it tq the griefe as hot as one
can suffer it.

In the section of the same choice book headed
" Country Contentments," we find it thus writ*
ten : —

If your dogge have been bitten by either Snake,
Adder or any other venomous thing, take the hearb
Calamint, and beat it in a morter with Turpentine
and yellow Waxe, till it come to a Salve, and then
apply it to the sore and it will heal it. Also if yoa
boile the herb in milke, and give the dogge it to
drink, it will expell all inward poison.

In the " Table of Hard Words," it is stated that
" Calamint is an ordinary hearb, and groweth by
ditches sides, by high waies, and sometimes la.
gardens."

For " The Generall Cure of all Cattell," w»
read in chapter 69, which treats " Of venomous
wounds, as biting with a mad dogge, tusks of
Bores, Serpents or such like," in the case of the
horse, as follows : —

For any of these mortall or venomous wounds,
take Yarrow, Calamint, and the grains of wheat,
and beat them in a morter with water of Sothern-
wood, and make it into a salve, and lay it to the
sore, and it will heale it safely.

* Ergastulum, where the slaves were confined, bound
or chained together, when they came from work, lest they
should make their escape in the night.

t Small 4to. London, 1657.

78

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

But in the case of " The Oxe, Cow, etc." —

If your beast be bitten with a mad Dog, or anj
other venomous beast, you shall take Plaintain anc
beat it in a morter with Bolearrnoniacke, Sanguis
Draconis, Early meale, and the whites of Egs, anc
playster-wise lay it to the sore, renewing it once in
fourteen hours.

Most of these simple remedies — except in the
case of the " mad dog" — were, doubtless, founc
efficacious in these fortunate islands, where the
only venomous serpent is the viper and its varie-
ties, and the harmless common snake throws its
enamelled skin among those beautiful wild flowers,
whose dewy blossoms bring back to the mind's
eye the images of the dear ones now gone to re-
ceive their reward in heaven, who were wont to
gaze lovingly with us upon those stars of the
earth long, long ago.

But we must go back to our reptile-house,
where the murderous cobra, the deadly cerastes,
the fatal puff-adder,* and the lethal rattlesnakes
remind us of the danger that lurks in paths made
<lovely by all the floral prodigality of warmer

• climates. There, too, are the giant forms of the
'boas and pythons, which, deprived of the stiletto
•of the smaller snakes, are recompensed with an
herculean power of gripe that would make the
ribs of an Antaeus crack like pistol-shots, as they
broke under the pressure of the mortal constric-
tion.

Before we enter into a particular account of
these forms let us inquire what a reptile is.

In common parlance the word would signify any
creature that creeps ; but, in the language of zoolo-
gists, it is used to designate those vertebrated ani-
mals, whether quadruped, biped, or footless, that
are either oviparous or ovoviviparous, breathe by
means of lungs for the most part, are destitute of
hair and feathers, and are without mammae.

Their organization, although designed after the

• one great law which is manifested throughout the
vertebrata, is more variously modified than that of
any other class of that division of animals. If
we examine the mammalia we find them formed
after one leading type. From man to a marmoset,
from a lion to a cat, from an elephant to a mouse,
from a whale to the smallest cetacean that swims,
the same plan of construction is manifested.
Among the feathered race, from an eagle to a
humming-bird, from a dinornis to an apteryx, we
.recognize an adherence to one-settled principle of
conformation. It is the same with fishes. But
among the reptiles, a wide and extensive difference
in the types or principles of structure must in-
stantly strike the most superficial observer. A
tortoise and a snake are both reptiles, zoologically
speaking. Look at these animals alive, or ex-
amine their skeletons, and a glance shows you the
wide difference of conformation displayed in the
two forms. But without selecting types so obvi-
ously distant, we shall find similar discrepancies,
external and internal, in this extensive class, and

* Clotho arietans.

that even among the more cognate reptilians.

Take a crocodile, an ichthyosaurus, or a plesio-
saurus, place it by the side of a chameleon, and
you will soon see, even with an unpractised eye,
how different their osseous systems are. The dis-
crepancy will be heightened if you add the skele-
ton of a toad or a frog to the group.

If we descend to detail, the anomaly is still
greater. A tortoise is toothless ; a saurian (lizard)
— take a crocodile, for example— is well furnished
with implanted teeth. Both, however, are quad-
rupedal, both have a heart with two auricles,
both lay eggs with a solid calcareous shell, and
the young of both are hatched in the form which
they retain through life without undergoing any
metamorphosis. A serpent or ophidian is foot-
less, but has a multitude of well-developed arched
ribs. Those which are not ovoviviparous lay
eggs with a soft though calcareous covering, but
their young come into the world in the same
shape as that borne by their parents. A frog or
batrachian has no ribs, or is possessed of the rudi-
ments of those bones only, and has a naked skin
destitute of scales. The eggs are gelatinous,
and laid in water. When the young are first
hatched they differ from their parents, and ans
furnished with branchiae or gills, which, except in
the perennibranchiate batrachians — Proteus, Axo
lotl, and Siren, for example — drop off as the ani
mal arrives at its ultimate form. The metamor
jhosis of the anurous batrachians — those which,
in their perfect state, are tailless — may be ob-
served every spring by watching the development
of the eggs of the common frog, of which Swam
merdam counted 1400 as the production of om.
female. The greenish albumen of these eggsi
does not coagulate easily, and the yolk or vitellus
s absorbed by the embryo. In the first stage of
ts existence the tadpole, or tetard as the French
erm it, has a somewhat elongated body, a tail
compressed at the sides, and external gills. Its
ninute mouth is armed with small hooks or teeth,

hich it plies vigorously upon the aquatic vegeta-
iles which then form its food ; and on the lower
ip is a small tubular process, by means of which
t adheres to the water-plants when taking its rest,
n the next stage the external gills disappear,
>ecoming covered by a membrane, and the tad-
3ole then breathes like a fish. The head, pro-
ided with eyes and nostrils, has no neck, but is
)ne with the now globular trunk, largely distended
iy the extensive digestive canal ; and the large
ail enables the animal to swim well and strongly,
n a short time the hind legs show themselves
icar the setting on of the tail, and are soon devel-
iped. Then the anterior feet are protruded ; and
as the limbs advance, the tail gradually lessens
and shortens, shrinking till it entirely disappears.
The mouth now becomes wider and loses the
horny, hook-like appendages, the head stands out
more from the body, and the eyes are furnished
vith lids. The belly becomes more elongated,
•ut is diminished in proportion to the size of the
nimal, and the intestines lose much of their

//*-

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

79

length. The true lungs begin to be formed ; and,
as they advance, the internal gills are gradually
obliterated. Thus the whole circulation is altered,
and the young frog quits the water, exchanging
its entirely aquatic and herbivorous life for a car-
nivorous, and, for the most part, terrestrial exist-
ence. These metamorphoses, which rfval those
of the insects, may bs seen on a grander scale in
the Eana paradoxa.

The serpents have two auricles, but the batr?,-
chians have, strictly speaking, only one, but it is
separated in'ernally into two chambers.

One worjr: more on the discrepancies of reptile
organization, and we will cease to pursue an in-
quiry which would be followed out with more
aptitude in a work more conversant with compara-
tive anatomy than this can pretend to be ; but the
general reader, as well as the student, should keep
those discrepancies steadily in view. The obser-
vations, however, shall be confined to the varying
skeletons.

Take the cranium of a crocodile. A more
solid, bony mass, you could hardly see. Now
turn to that of a boa. The skull, you see, is
made up of a considerable number of pieces, all
admirably fitted and joined together, but with such
an adaptation as easily to admit of separation.
Why is this ? The long head and widely exten-
sive jaws of the crocodile enable it to secure and
take into the stomach a comparatively large prey.
But the serpent frequently has to master and swal-
low an animal utterly disproportioned to the usual
gape of the mouth ; the skull is, therefore, so
framed as easily to admit of partial dislocation, so
that it may aid the dilatation of the jaws and
throat, and facilitate deglutition. The ribs in the
frogs, as before observed, are almost null ; in the
serpents they are so lavishly developed and so
freely articulated that they i re used as organs of
motion. In the tortoises tl iy are implanted and
incorporated with the rest ( '. the canapace. The
ribs of the serpent ma? V- compared to the legs
of a millipede situa'e'l internally, and operating
externally principp'Jy by acting on the scutes of
the belly on which it creeps. Some reptiles have
not only a trnr breast-bone, but also an addition,
which has Leon termed an abdominal sternum.
This may be seen in the crocodiles, and seems to
be produced !>y the ossification of the tendons of
the recti muscles. But while some have two
sterna, others have none at all. The chameleon,
for instance, though the ribs are well formed, has
no breast-bone. The tortoise, and the majority of
saurians, are gifted with four sufficiently well-
developed extremities. Chirotes and bipes have
only two ; the former an anterior pair, the latter
a posterior pair, and those but poorly framed.

But though these and other great differences of
organization are patem among the reptiles, every
bone of every reptile is marked with such pecu-
liarity of character as to indicate at once the clas;
to which it belongs. A skilful comparative anat-
omist can never mistake such a bone for that of
any other race of animals. Professor Owen and

other palaeontologists have largely profited by
their knowledge of this peculiarity, as appears
from the great and admirable work on British fossil
reptiles by the professor, now in the course of
publication.*

From the great difference in the organization
of this class, a great variety of motility was to be
xpected :

The motion of reptiles is as various as their
structure, and exhibits a great diversity, particu-
larly in the modes of progression. The slow
march of the land tortoises, the paddling of the tur-
tles, the swimming and walking of the crocodiles,
the newts, and the protei, the agility of the lizards,
the rapid serpentine advance of the snakes, the
leaping of the frogs, offer a widely-extended scale
of motion. If we add the vaulting of the dragons,
and the flying of the pterodactyles, there is hardly
any mode of animal progression which is not to be
found among the reptiles. f

When we examine the different systems pub-
lished by zoologists with reference to the reptiles,
we find, with few exceptions, the first place as-
signed to the chelonians or tortoises ; and, before
we proceed to notice the other forms, let us rapid-
ly survey this highly-interesting order.

The land-tortoises first claim attention.

28th July. — I went to see the great tortoise
(Testudo elephantopus) presented by the queen to
the Zoological Society of London, and arrived at
the garden in the Regent's Park between nine and
ten o'clock. The morning had been rainy, but
the sun bravely struggled through the clouds
which cleared away before his radiant presence,
as the story-book has it, and I saw the venerable
reptile in its paddock before the newly-erected hut
built for its reception near the otters' pond. It is
the largest I ever beheld. The ancient seemed to
be in a dreamy kind of doze, -with its head tucked
into its shell, which glittered — still moist with
the rain that had fallen — in the sunbeams — a shell
fit to make a lyre for Polypheme, if he had been
inclined to try his hand when tired of the hundred
reeds of decent growth that made a pipe for his
capacious mouth. Though the weather had been
very wet since its arrival a day or two previously,
it did not seem to have availed itself of the shelter
of its hut. Another comparatively small land-
tortoise was also in the enclosure near a corner,
but entirely exposed to the weather. One colos-
sal anterior foot of the dozing giant rested on its
sole ; its fellow was carelessly lying on its side.
The soles of both the hind feet were on the turf.
I scratched the sole of the anterior foot, which
was exposed, and then the head. The sleeper
was awakened, and put forth its long, serpentine
neck, opened one eye very deliberately, and then
the other as lazily, gave a gasp or two, withdrew
the head, and then again protruded it. Cabbages,
lettuces, and vegetable marrows, the latter equal-
ling in tempting appearance those which the mad

* A History of British Fossil Reptiles. By Richard
Owen, F.R.S., &c. 4to. London: Printed for the Au-
thor.

t Penny Cyclopedia, vol. xix., p. 410.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

gentleman placed upon the top of Mrs. Nickleby's
wall, or projected into her garden, lay scattered
in profusion around. In many of these the
trenchant bill of the reptile had made incision ;
and, as they had forgotten to provide the royal
guest with a napkin, fragments of the last meal
remained hanging about its horny lips. Large as
the creature is, one may easily conceive the dis-
appointment of the spectator who first sees it at
rest. When it is in motion, and the huge body is
raised on the pillar-like legs, it is a much more
striking object. Professor Owen had been sum-
moned to Buckingham Palace to see it before its
removal to the garden in the Regent's Park, by
the gracious direction of her majesty, and, in the
presence of Prince Albert, proceeded to take the
dimensions of the girth of the animal. To do
this more effectually, he bestrode the reposing
mass. While thus employed, the tortoise, who
probably

Never in that sort

Had handled been before,
What thing upon his back had got

Did wonder more and more ;

and walked off with the professor, to the great
amusement of the prince, while the philosopher,
as he rode along, calmly continued his measure-
ment, which gave twelve feet as the circumference
of this fine old Galapagosian. There appears to
be good ground for believing that 175 summers
and winters have passed over the head of this
doughty devourer of vegetables ; and there is no
reason for coming to the conclusion that, if left
undisturbed in its native wilds, it might not see as
many more. The great fossil testudinates of the
Himalaya probably attained a much greater age ;
and when we consider the regularity of living,
and the quiet habits of the tortoises, the enduring
nature of their organization, and their great tenac-
ity of life, we may be pardoned if we hint at the
probability that, under favorable circumstances,
vitality might endure

As of old for a thousand long years.

The tortoises have no teeth to lose, no irritable
nervous system to wear out the durable animated
materials encased in their impenetrable armor.

Dampier and Mr. Darwin saw these enormous
reptiles in their native haunts on the islands of
the Galapagos Archipelago. The former describes
them as being so numerous, that 500 or 600 men
might subsist on them for several months without
any other provision ; adding, that they are extraor-
dinarily large and fat, and that no pullet is bet-
ter eating. The latter, in his excellent Journal,
notices their numbers as being very great, and
states his belief that they are to be found in all
the islands of the Archipelago. In his walk
among the little craters which there abound, the
glowing heat of the day, the rough surface of the
ground, and the intricate thickets, produced great
fatigue ; but, with the true spirit of a naturalist,
he says that he was well repaid by the Cyclopian
scene. He met two large tortoises, each of which
must have weighed at least 200 pounds. One

was eating a piece of cactus ; and when Mr. Dar-
win approached, it looked at him, and then quietly
walked away ; the other gave a deep hiss, and
drew in his head. Those huge reptiles, sur-
rounded by the black lava and large cacti, ap-
peared to his fancy like some antediluvian animals.
Mr. Darwin was informed by Mr. Lawson, an
Englishman, who, at the time of his visit, had
charge of the colony, that he had seen several so
large that it required six or eight men to lift them
from the ground, and that some had yielded as
much as 200 pounds of meat. The old males,
readily distinguished by the greater length of their
tails — for that appendage is always longer in the
male than in the female — are the largest, the fe-
males rarely growing to so great a size. They
prefer the high, damp parts of the islands, but
also inhabit the lower and arid districts. Those
that live in the islands where there is no water,
or in the arid parts of the others, feed chiefly on
the cactus, whose succulent nature compensates
for the want of liquid. But those which frequent
the higher and moist regions, revel in a diet of the
leaves of various trees, a kind of acid, austere
berry, called guayavita ; and a pale green fila-
mentous lichen, hanging in tresses from the
boughs of trees. It must not, however, be con-
cluded that these tortoises do not care about
water ; for Mr. Darwin tells us that they are very
fond of it, drinking large quantities when they
can get it, and wallowing in the mud when they
find it. The larger islands alone, it appears,
possess springs, which are always situated towards
the central parts, and at a considerable elevation.
The tortoises which frequent the lower districts
are therefore obliged, when thirsty, to travel from
a long distance. Broad and well-beaten paths,
the result of these travels, radiate off in every
direction from the wells, even down to the sea-
coast. This was not lost upon the Spaniards,
who followed them up, and so discovered the
watering-places. When Mr. Darwin landed at
Chatham Island he could not imagine what animal
travelled so methodically along the well-chosen
tracks. Near the springs it was a curious spec-
tacle, he observes, to behold many of these great
monsters, one set eagerly travelling onwards, with
outstretched necks, and another set returning, after
having drunk their fill. He remarked that, when
the tortoise arrives at the spring, it buries its
head in the water above the eyes, quite regardless
of any spectator, and greedily swallows great
mouthsful, at the rate of about ten in a minute.
According to Mr. Darwin, the inhabitants say that
each visitor stays three or four days in the neigh-
borhood of the water, and then returns to the
lower country ; but they differed in their accounts
respecting the frequency of those visits. Mr.
Darwin thinks that the animal probably regulates
them according to the nature of the food which it
has consumed ; but he observes that it is certain
that tortoises can subsist, even on those islands,
where there is no other water than what falls dur-
ing a few rainy days in the year. The rate of

LEAxfE. FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

travelling m tne visits to the springs, or when
going to any definite point, is said by those who
have come to their conclusion from observations
on marked individuals, to be about eight miles in
two or three days, and they continue to move on-
wards both by night and by day. Mr. Darwin
watcned one large tortoise, and found that it
walked at the rate of sixty yards in ten minutes ;
that is, 3GO in the hour, or four miles a-day,
allowing a little time for it to eat on the road.

The love-pranks of the male are continued with
a deliberation worthy of a creature whose motions
in excavating the earth for hybernation are so
ridiculously slow, that White describes the move-
ment of the legs, when so employed, as little
exceeding that of the hour-hand of a clock. Mr.
Darwin relates that when the Galapagos tortoise
is solus cum sold he utters a hoarse roar or
bellowing, which can be heard at the distance of
a hundred yards, and then is vocally silent for the
rest of the year. The female, it is said, never
makes her voice heard, if, indeed, she have one.
The white spherical eggs are laid in October, the
female depositing them together where the soil is
sandy, and covering them up with sand. Where
the ground is rocky she drops them indiscrimi-
nately in any hollow. Seven were found placed
in a line in a fissure. One measured by Mr.
Darwin was seven inches and three eighths in
circumference. As soon as the young tortoises
are hatched they are exposed to the attacks of a
buzzard, which has the habits of the caracara, and
fall a prey in great numbers to that bird. Acci-
dents, such as falls from precipices, seem to be
the principal events against which these tortoises
have to guard. Several of the inhabitants told
Mr. Darwin that they had never found one dead
without some such apparent cause. They believe
that these animals are, like the majority of Per-
sian cats, absolutely deaf; and Mr. Darwin
declares with certainty that they do not overhear
a person walking close behind them. He was
amused, when overtaking one of these great mon-
sters, as it was quietly pacing along, to see how
suddenly, the instant he passed, it would draw in
its head and legs, and, uttering a deep hiss, fall to
the ground with a heavy sound, as if struck dead.
He frequently got on their backs, and then, upon
giving a few raps on the hinder part of the shell,
they would rise up and walk away ; but he found
it very difficult to keep his balance.

The flesh of these tortoises is largely consumed,
both fresh and salted. It is not unusual to collect
them, barrel them up alive, put them on shipboard,
and take them out as they are wanted, when they
do not appear to have wasted much in consequence
of their fast. From the fat a fine clear oil is
prepared ; and when a tortoise is caught, the
state of its fatness is ascertained by a very sum-
mary process, which must be more satisfactory to
the agent than the patient. The captor makes a
slit with a knife in the skin near the animal's tail,
so as to see inside its body whether the fat under
the dorsal plate is thick. If it be not the tortoise

is liberated for that time, walks away, and soon
recovers so as to be none the worse for the oper-
ation. Those who follow this somewhat trenchant
course of experiment are soon made aware, that to
secure one of these tortoises it is not sufficient to
turn them like turtle ; for, as Mr. Darwin tells us,
they are often able to regain their upright position
after having been so left on their backs.

In America people have an odd way of immor-
talizing themselves, and leaving intimations to
friends and succeeding visitors where they have
been. When they find a tortoise, they turn it up,
cut their names with a knife on the investing
horny plates of the plastron or ventral portion of
the shell, and then setting the reptile on its legs,
give the walking inscription its liberty.

But if we are to credit ancient legends, our
royal tortoise and its Galapagosian brethren must
hide their diminished heads. De Laet avers that
they grow to such a size in Cuba, that one will
carry five men on its back, and walk off with
them. But some authors never like to be outdone,
and the writer of Thaumatographia, who, to do
him justice, is a most industrious collector of
marvellous stories, gives us one on the authority
of Leo that throws all other testudinarian tales
into the shade. A traveller in Africa, weary and
way-sore at the end of a fatiguing day, aftei
seeking in vain for shelter, looked about, as tht
shades of evening deepened, for some insulatet
rock in the desert on which he might repost*
secure from the fierce or poisonous animals tha»
infested those dreary wilds. At length, just a,.
darkness overtook him, he saw what he wanted,
climbed it, found a good flat place on its summit,
lay down, and soon forgot the labors of the pas.
day in a heavy slumber, from which he awoke no.
till the sun was up, and then he found that hi.
dormitory had been moved nearly three thousand
paces from the spot where he had laid down.
This made him look about him, when he dis-
covered that what he had taken for a rock was a
tortoise, that had gone on feeding during the night,
but at so imperceptibly slow a pace that the
sleeper was not aware of the motion.

The great Galapagos tortoises which have
hitherto been brought to this country have never
lived long. They have thriven apparently till
the time of hybernation arrived, and then have
slept never to wake again. The returning spring
has always found them dead. Whether they have
not the means of properly laying themselves up
and of reposing in the temperature exactly suited
to their case, or have been fed too liberally on
lettuce, which acts as an opiate when taken in any
large quantity, are questions that have been con-
sidered, but as yet have not been satisfactorily
answered. Taking into the account their usual
diet in a state of nature, it may be questioned
whether it is advisable to feed these gigantic tor-
toises so much on lettuces. The quantity of
opium which must find its way into the system
under so large a consumption must be very con-
siderable ; and it would be as well to try the

82

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

effect of a supply of other succulent vegetables,
such as gourds and cabbages, with, a fair propor-
tion of lettuce. And yet the " old tortoise" im-
mortalized by White selected milky plants, such
as lettuces, dandelions, and sow-thistles, as its
favorite dish ; and for years continued to retire
under ground about the middle of November,
coming forth again about the middle of April. Its
age was not known, but it had been kept for
thirty years in a little walled court ; and in a
neighboring village one was kept till it was sup-
posed to be a hundred years old. The tortoise
introduced into the garden of Lambeth Palace in
the time of Archbishop Laud continued to live
there till the year 1753, and its death was then
attributed to the neglect of the gardener rather
than to age. The author of Physico-theology,*
to whom the writers of modern treatises are so
largely indebted, saw it in August, 1712, " in my
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's garden," and
speaks of it as having been there since the time
of the prelatef who smoothed the path of the
royal martyr from earth to heaven, and received,
as the cold complaining eye of the victim was
fixed steadily on him, the mysterious " Remem-
ber !" from his dying lips. The shell of this
tortoise was, and probably is, preserved in the
library of the palace at Lambeth.

White's tortoise — for it afterwards became his,
to the evident satisfaction of that charming natu-
ralist and excellent man — when it first appeared in
the spring, discovered very little inclination
towards food, but in the height of summer grew
voracious. As the summer declined, so did its
appetite ; and for the last six weeks in autumn it
hardly ate at all. Its habits seemed to have
differed widely from those of the great tortoises
of the Galapagos. They, as we have seen,
delighted, after a long abstinence probably, to
plunge their heads into the water and to wallow
in mud. White's tortoise appears to have lived
in positive dread of the element.

No part of its behavior (writes White) ever
struck me more than the extreme timidity it always
expresses with regard to rain ; and though it has
a shell that would secure it against a loaded cart,
yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain
as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling
away on the first sprinklings, and running its head
up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an ex-
cellent weather-glass ; for as sure as it walks
elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great
earnestness in the morning, so sure will it rain
before night.

Darwin's great tortoises marched by night as
well as by day in their walks to the wells.
White describes his as totally a diurnal animal,
and never pretending to stir after it became dark ;
and yet he declares that nothing could be more
assiduous than the creature, night and day, in
scooping the earth and forcing its great body into
the cavity intended for its hybernaculum. This,
however, it must be remembered, was a work of
* Derham. t Juxon.

necessity, in which delay would have been dan-
gerous. Beginning its excavation on the first of
November, it had no time to lose, with the biting
frosts close at hand ; and if it had been overtaken
by them it would have suffered even more than
Captain Dalgetty, when he learned the rules of ser-
vice so tightly under old Sir Ludovick Lesly that
he was not likely to forget them in a hurry : —

Sir, I have been made to stand guard eight
hours, being from twelve at noon to eight o'clock
of the night, at the palace, armed with back and
breast, head-piece, and bracelets — being iron to the
teeth, in a bitter frost, and the ice was as hard as
ever was flint ; and all for stopping an instant 'o
speak to my landlady, when I should have gone lo
roll-call.

White's tortoise was careful to avoid the other
extreme of temperature : —

Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the
hot sun ; because this thick shell, when once
heated, would, as the poet says of solid armor,
" scald with safety." He, therefore, spends the
more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large
cabbage leaf, or amid the waving forests of an
asparagus bed. But as he avoids heat in the sum-
mer, so in the decline of the year he improves the
faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflec-
tion of a fruit wall ; and though he never has read
that planes inclining to the horizon receive a
greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell, by
tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit
every feeble ray.

This pet was a huge sleeper ; for it not only
remained under the earth from the middle of No-
vember to the middle of April, its arbitrary
stomach and lungs enabling it to refrain from eat-
ing as well as breathing during that time, but
slept the greater part of the summer ; for it went
to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon,
and often did not stir in the morning till late.
Besides, it retired to rest for every shower, and
did not move at all on wet days.

When one reflects (says White) on the stale of
this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find
that Providence should bestow such a profusion of
days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a
reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squan-
der away more than two thirds of its existence in
a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for
months together in the profoundest of slumbers.

But notwithstanding this lethargic temperament
the old tortoise knew its benefactress, and as soon
as the good old lady came in sight, who had
waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbled
towards her with awkward alacrity, but remained
inattentive to strangers. There was too an annual
period when he was unusually on the alert. We
think we can see the worthy pastor of Selborne
looking down, with the air of the melancholy
Jaques, on his favorite, and exclaiming : —

Pitiable seems the condition of this poor em-
barrassed reptile : to be cased in a suit of ponder-
ous armor, which he cannot lay aside ; to be im-
prisoned, as it were, within his own shell ; must
preclude, we should suppose, all activity and dis-

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

83

position for enterprise. Yet there is a season of
the year (usually the beginning of June) when his
exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tip-
toe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and,
traversing the garden, explores every wicket and
interstice in the fences, through which he will
escape if possible ; and often has eluded the care
of the gardener, and wandered to some distant
field. The motives that impel him to undertake
these, rambles seem to be of the amorous kind ; his
fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments,
which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and
induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn
deportment.

It is very possible that Cupid may have then
been bestriding him. White's description looks
Tery like the restlessness of passion —

Nee tibi Vespero
Sursjente decedunt amores,
Nee rapidum fugiente solem.

But the love of liberty and, not improbably, an
annual migratory impulse in search of fresh pas-
ture, may have been the prevailing motive. At
all events, neither he nor the other fye^foixos are
without their comforts. Each of them is inde-
pendent of any capricious landlord, and both snail
and tortoise, if they could speak, might say what
it is a great privilege to be able to say, " Death
alone can turn me out of this house."

The tenacity of life with which the Testudinata
are gifted would be hardly credible to those who
have not closely studied the subject. No well-
regulated mind can read of some of the experi-
ments which have- been made to place the fact
beyond all doubt without being shocked ; but
averse as every good man must be to the infliction
of pain or death, it is but fair to allow that such
experiments may be more cruel in appearance
than in reality. Redi's operations must have
been attended with instant death if made upon
the higher and warm-blooded vcrtebrata. His
tortoises lived, and showed no signs of acute
suffering.

In the beginning of November he opened the
skull of a land-tortoise, removed every particle of
brain, and cleaned the cavity out. The animal
was then set at liberty, but, instead of dying or
remaining motionless, it groped its way about
freely as its inclination directed, without the aid
of sight ; for when the animal was deprived of its
brain it closed its eyes, which it never opened
afterwards. The wound was left open, but
skinned over in three days, and the tortoise con-
tinued to go about till the middle of May, when
it died. On examining the skull, the cavity
which had contained the brain was found empty
and clean as it had been left, with the exception
of one small, dry, black clot of blood.

But this was not a solitary instance. Many
other land-tortoises were subjected to the same
treatment in November, January, February, and
March. The result was similar, with some ex-
ception ; for some moved about freely, but others,
though they showed that they were alive by
other motions, did not. Fresh-water tortoises,

when made the subjects of the same experiment,
acted like the others, but did not Jive so long.
But Redi had a notion, that if the marine tortoises
were deprived of their brain they would live for a
very long time ; for having received a turtle
which was very much wasted and faint, he opened
its skull and treated it in every respect as he had
treated the land-tortoises, and, emaciated as it
was, it lived six days after the operation.

But Redi proved the enduring vitality of these
reptiles by a more decisive experiment. In the
month of November he cut off the head of a large
tortoise ; the headless animal did not expiie till
twenty-three days had elapsed. This decapitated
existent did not, indeed, move about like those
which had only been robbed of their brain ;
but when any mechanical stimulus, such as prick-
ing or poking, was applied to the anterior or
posterior extremities, the headless trunk drew
them up with considerable liveliness, and exhibit-
ed many other motions. To free himself from
all doubt as to the vitality of these animals under
such circumstances, Redi cut off the heads of four
other tortoises. Twelve days after decapitation
he opened two of them, when he beheld the
heart beating, and saw the blood enter and leave it

These were Redi's experiments : for them he
is answerable. But it is only just to remark,
that in this frightful state of life in death there
may be more of irritability than sensation. The
restoration of mutilated organs in the reptiles is
wonderful to the uninitiated. Look at the eye : a
subject for Newton. I remember to have seen in
a large glass bowl a number of aquatic lizards,
which were undergoing the curative and repro-
ductive process, which kind nature had initiated —
ay, and carried out completely — after they had
been deprived of an anterior extremity or an eye.
In both cases the organs were reproduced. The
anterior extremity is nothing when compared to
the organ of vision ; but, after all, the cornea
through which we see such glorious sights is
nothing but a modification of the skin, and the
rest of that wonderful orb in a low grade of ani-
mal nature may be easily supplied . It may occur
to some that the clot in the cranium of Redi's
brainless tortoise was an attempt to restore the
great centre of the nervous system ; but the
probability is, that nature was endeavoring to
repair' the injury, and to secure as much of life as
was to be obtained under the shocking circum-
stances.

The length of time during which Redi's head-
less tortoise lingered will not surprise those who
have seen how much life remains, and for how
long, in a turtle after all its wasting by the un-
healthy voyage. We have been taught, and truly
with respect to the higher grade of animals, that:
in the blood is the life. But in the case of the-
testudinate which is to furnish forth the soup, the
calippee, the steaks, the currie, for which and.
upon which aldermen live, any one who wishes to
descend into the abysses from which that am-
brosial feast is furnished forth, may find a head-

84

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

less trunk suspended neck downwards that it may
bleed more freely, and the head placed bill upper-
most on a cold plate for the resting-place of the
severed neck. The snapping of the jaws of that
distant head, and the movements of that suspended
body, have startled more than one neophyte who
has been taken down to see " what a turtle can
do when its head is cut off;" especially if, as it
has happened to some of my friends, their fingers
have chanced to come within reach of the turtle's
bill at the snapping moment.

That such post-decapitation snaps and motions
should raise horrible ideas of comparison is hardly
to be wondered at ; and I remember this instance
of the vitality of the turtle's head being brought
foiward in corroboration of the sickening story of
the blush on Charlotte Corday's face, when the
biutal executioner struck it on the cheek as he
held up the severed head to the execration of the
friends of the imp Marat, the idol of the canaille
that surrounded the guillotine. A friend saw an
execution in Italy by an instrument resembling the
Scottish maiden. He was very near the scene of
death, and when the criminal's head was held up,
he saw the eyes roll from right to left and from
left to right. Those best qualified to judge are
of opinion that this and similar movements are
merely convulsive, and that the severed head does
not feel. To say nothing of the stunning shock
to the nervous system, more especially if the pon-
derous trenchant axe falls upon the occiput, as it
did in the case of the unfortunate Louis XVI.,
whose under-jaw was said to have been left on the
trunk, either from his shrinking just before the
fatal moment, or the shortness of his neck ; the
blood-vessels of the brain must be so speedily
emptied when a person suffers death by the guil-
lotine, that all sensation must vanish in a very
short space of time ; but it is very far from clear
that the head does not continue to live during that
short space, and if it feels even for a moment or
two, who shall say that in those moments it may
not suffer an eternity of agony and shame 1 It has
been hinted, that during that diabolical French
carnival, when terror reigned supreme, and frater-
nity— the fraternity of Cain and his brother — had
reached its culminating point, observations were
made on "the newly-severed heads that gave evi-
dence of action, if not of feeling, after their sep-
aration from the bodies of the victims of the revo-
lutionary tribunal. Some of our readers may
have heard of another horror of that accursed time.
At first, when the executions were few and far
between, the body was thrown into quicklime ;
but as the thirst for blood advanced, when the
guillotine was en permanence, and, though it rested
not, could not do the work of extermination fast
enough ; when the cord, and the pike, and the
sabre, and the musket, and the cannon, were all
^brought into action, and the noyades were added
to the fusillades, the utilitarians began to think
that the quicklime operation was destructive of
much good animal matter. So the muscle of the
slaughtered was converted into adipocere for the

candle manufactory, and their skins furnished no
small quantity of exquisite leather. Little did
the beauty of that age, as she charmed all eyes at
the ball, think whence came the light in which
she shone, or that the delicate glove which set off
her more delicate arm was not the spoil of the
kid.*

More than enough of these horrors — may they
never rise again to shock humanity in our time ! —
and " return we" — as a most excellent judge was
wont to say when leading back the jury from a
digression into which he had seduced them, but
always with the effect of arresting their attention
more strongly to the issue which they had to try
— return we to the extraordinary vitality mani-
fested by the Testudinata under the most adverse
circumstances.

A small tortoise was received in this country in
the winter ; in a state of hibernation, doubtless.
The condition of the little animal never occurred
to the recipient. The head and limbs were tucked
into the shell, and he put it into a drawer with a
collection of snuff-boxes, intending to have it
mounted as a companion to the rest. The drawer
was not opened for many months, and when it
was, it smelt, as the proprietor thought, rather
musty. He therefore pulled it out on a fine,
warm, moist, autumnal day, exposed it to the
open air on the outside of a window, and went
where his business called him. When he re-
turned, he thought he would take a look at his
drawer, and as soon as he cast a glance upon it,
he saw, as he thought, one of his snuff-boxes
walking about. He rubbed his eyes, and looked
again. His senses had not deceived him, for
there was the tortoise roused from his long, long
sleep, by the genial atmosphere ; and, though it
was not exactly in the state to make soup for a
fairy alderman, it soon gained strength under kind
treatment, and lived long.

The alleged length of time during which sus-
pended animation may be continued, with the
power of again resuming the functions of life,
would be considered as fit only for fable, were it
not confirmed beyond all doubt. Hear honest and
true Benjamin Franklin, who thus relates a some-
what extraordinary anecdote of some flies which
had undergone a similar fate to that of " poor
Clarence," but with a much more happy result to
some of the party : —

They had been drowned in Madeira wine, ap-
parently about the time when it was bottled in
Virginia, to be sent hither (to London.) At the
opening of one of the bottles at the house of a friend
where I then was, three drowned flies fell into the
first glass which was filled Having heard it re-
marked that drowned flies were capable of being
revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed making
the experiment upon these ; they were, therefore,
exposed to the sun upon a sieve, which had been
employed to strain them out of the wine. In less
than three hours two of them began by degrees to
recover life. They commenced by some convulsive

* The skin of a human being, properly prepared, is very
like line kid leather.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

85

motions in the thighs, and at length they raised
themselves upon their legs, wiped their eyes with
their fore-feet, beat and brushed their wings with
their hind-feet, and soon after began to fly — finding
themselves in old England without knowing how
they came thither. The third continued lifeless till
sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, he was
thrown away.

The philosopher thus improves the occasion : —

I wish it were possible, from this instance, to
invent a method of embalming drowned per-
sons, in such a manner that they might be recalled
to life at any period, however distant ; for, having
a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of
America an hundred years hence, I should prefer
to any ordinary death the being immersed in a cask
of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till that time,
to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my
dear country.*

Now, Heaven forbid, that in this incredulous
time any doubt should be thrown upon this com-
fortable story ; but I have somewhere met with
another account of the extraordinary longevity
of a fly. The relator, when in Germany, was
promised by his host a superlative wine which
had been ten years in bottle. The well-corked
flask was produced, and while mine host was
descanting on its age and merits, and holding it
up to the light, he, to whom it was offered, be-
held between his eye and the sun a fly vigorously
struggling on the surface of the wine. Modest as
he was, he could not resist his impulse to point
out the struggler, observing that the venerable in-
sect had, no doubt, been kept in health and vigor
by the elixir vita in the bottle. The innkeeper —
and this is the strangest part of the story — was
abashed ; and in his confusion was surprised into
a declaration that he never would tell another lie.

The old nursery-book told us, and told us truly,
under usual circumstances, that

The tortoise securely from danger does dwell,
When he tucks up his head and his tail in his shell.

The true Terrapenes, or, as those land-tortoises
are called by Jack, " Turpins," may defy the
general chapter of accidents, though there may
be no safety either for him or the poet, on whose
bald head a raptorial bird may drop the reptile
from on high, taking the calvarium for a stone.
With a dorsal buckler constructed principally out
of eight pair of ribs, united towards their middle
by a succession of angular plates, into which the
ribs are, as it were, inlaid ; and a plastron or
breastplate composed of nine pieces, each of which,
with one exception, are pairs, the ninth being
placed between the four anterior pieces, with the
two first of which it generally coheres, when it is
not articulated with the four, and the whole form-
ing in the adult a strong breast-and-belly plate —
compact in all its parts, and united on each side to
the dorsal buckler, the whole being so framed and
composed as to resist a very high degree of pres-
sure, or a powerful blow — the land-tortoise has
only to offer the passive resistance of its defensive

* Franklin's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 227.

armor to set at nought the attacks of ordinary en-
emies. There is one genus of land-tortoises*
which does not grow to such a size, or carry such
ponderous armor, as those of the genus Testudo,
that has a still further safeguard against the pre-
datory animals to whose attempts it is exposed.
In this form the anterior portion of the plastron,
reaching backward to the space occupied by the
two first pairs of sternal plates, is susceptible of
motion. Under the strongly-marked suture of the
second with the third pair, is the elastic ligament
which serves for a hinge. When the animal
wishes to open this movable lid, under which,
when closed, the head and fore-feet are closely
boxed up, it lowers the lid, protrudes its head.and
fore-feet, and walks or feeds till danger ap-
proaches, when it draws them in, raises the lid,
and thus shuts itself up in a compact-box ; for the
edges of this operculum on hinges fit close as
wax to those of the carapace, which here forms a
sort of animated door-case. Thus the animal has
nothing to fear in front ; and behind, it is securely
protected by its enlarged and deepened plastron,
under which the posterior extremities and tail can
be entirely and snugly drawn up. Among the
marsh-tortoisesf there is a similar conformation ;
and the species so protected have obtained the apt
name of Box-tortoises.

But, as if Nature were determined to show that
she can vary any plan, however ingenious, she has
thought fit to turn out of hand another phase of
this box-like construction, and in Kinyxis we have
it behind instead of before. The tortoises of this
group are gifted with the power of moving the
posterior part of their carapace, which they can
lower and apply to their plastron, so as completely
to close the box behind, as those of the genus
Pyxis close the anterior part of their shells. But
in Kinyxis there is no hinge-like apparatus as
there is in Pyxis. In Kinyxis the bones bend ;
and, in consequence of their thinness and elasticity,
the carapace can be bent down at the will of the
animal, so as to approximate the plastron. A
sinuous line, on which the animal mechanism op-
erates, is indicated externally between the penulti-
mate and ante-penultimate marginal plate ; and
this point, or rather, line of flexion, is furni?hed
with a tissue partaking of the nature of fibre and
cartilage.

But which of the land-tortoises furnished the
shell — the chorded shell, dear to Apollo and the
Muses ?

Pausanias says, that it was a species which was
found in the Arcadian woods ; and it very proba-
bly was that now known as Testudo Grezca.
Others declare that it was an African species
(whose carapace and dried tendons gave out a
sound when struck by Mercury, who found it after
an inundation of the Nile) that furnished the hint
for the lyre.

The Elodians, or marsh-tortoises, are gifted
with far greater activity than their terrestrial re-
lations. They swim with great facility, and make

* Pyxis.

t Sternothaerus.

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

a much quicker inarch on land, leading a preda-
tory, quisquilious, amphibious life, and frequenting
sluggish streams, the lake, the pond, and the
marsh Their food consists principally of fresh-
water molluscous animals, tailless and tailed
batrachians,* and annelids, or worm-like crea-
tures.

The honeymoon of these elodians endures for
many weeks at a certain time of the year ; and
their prolonged loves are blest with a goodly batch
of spherical eggs, without any calcareous shell,
but as white as those of the other chelonians.
The nest is a shallow cavity in the earth, scraped
out by the female ; and the banks of the waters,
wherein she spends much of her time, are general-
ly selected ; for her instinct teaches her that such
a locality offers a refuge to the young, who take
refuge in the waters from their numerous enemies
as soon as they are hatched.

And here it may be observed that the Chersians,
or land-tortoises, are, as a general rule, feeders on
vegetables ; the Thalassians, or sea-tortoises,
commonly known as turtles, both vegetarian (in
some cases almost entirely so) and carnivorous ;
while the Elodians, or marsh-tortoises, and the
Potamians, or river-tortoises, which may both be
classed under one common head, the gradation
being almost insensible, are supported on animal
food, the prey being generally taken in a living
state. In conformity with this dispensation, the
anterior extremity of the upper bill in the majority
of species exhibits a large notch, and on each side
of it a sufficiently strong tooth, reminding the ob-
server of the beak of the higher raptorial birds.

In some of this group, Nature, which in the
chelonian forms which we have already noticed
had contented herself with a lid either before or
behind, carries out what may be termed the box
principle, by making, as in the genus Cistudo, a
movable lid both before and behind. In this sub-
genus a cartilage attaches the wide oval plastron
to the buckler. This cartilage is movable both
before and behind, turning on the same transversal
mesial hinge, and, at the will of the animal, pre-
senting nothing but a well-closed box to the pry-
ing eyes of the enemy. In Kinosternon, also, the
oval sternum is movable before and behind on a
fixed piece ; but in Staurotypus, the thick cruci-
form sternum is movable in front only. In others
again, Platysternon and Emysaura, for example,
the plastron is immovable.

The Potamians, or true river-tortoises, whose
species have been confounded under the name of
Trionyx, have among them some which grow to a
considerable size. To say nothing of one which
was kept by Pennant, and weighed twenty pounds,
seventy pounds have been stated as the weight
attained by certain individuals. Inhabiting the
streams and rivers, or great lakes of the warmer
regions of the earth, their habits are generally
similar. Swimming with much ease either upon
or beneath the surface of the water, they pursue

* Anurous and urodcle batrachians of the learned.

roung crocodiles, other reptiles and fishes, which
heir agility enables them to make their prey.
They are also said to be great destroyers of the
;ggs of the crocodiles, especially in the Nile and
he Ganges. The angler baits his hook for them
with small fishes or other living bait, unless his
skill enables him so to play a dead or artificial one
as to deceive the sharp eyes of these tortoises,
whose flesh is considered very good for the table.
.f he goes out with proper tackle, the sport is
satisfactory enough ; but one of them took the fly
of a justly-celebrated singer and skilful disciple of
old Izaak's school, while he was fishing for trout.
Ele thought he had got hold of an old boat ; but,
unwieldy as his prize was, he would probably
lave landed it if left to himself. His stupid at-
tendant, however, rushed forward and seized the
.ine, which, thus deprived of the spring of the rod,
:ould not bear the strain, and the potamian got
lear off.

Islets, rocks, floating timber, or the trunks of
"alien trees on the banks, are the favorite places
of resort to which these tortoises come for repose
during the night. But they are very wary, and
the least noise sends them immediately into the
water. They are troublesome customers to those
who are not aware of their mode of attack. When
they seize their prey, or are on the defensive, they
suddenly and most rapidly dart out their retracted
tiead and long neck, like lightning, biting most
sharply ; and rarely relaxing their hold till they
have taken the piece, into which they have fixed
their cutting and pertinacious bill, out. The
fisherman, therefore, either cuts off their heads as
soon as he has secured them, or reins them up
with a sort of bridle, so as to prevent the dreaded
bite ; and, in this last state, I have been told, they
are often exposed alive for sale in the markets.

In the months of April or May, the sandy spots
on the banks of the rivers or lakes which have a
good exposure to the sun are sought out by the
females, as the places of deposit of their eggs, to
the amount of some fifty or sixty ; and in July the
young make their appearance. The patience of a
German is proverbial ; with the eternal pipe in his
mouth, he calmly follows out his subject, and fol-
lows it out well ; but when we find Monsieur
Lesueur patiently counting the ova in the ovary
of a potamian mother, and deliberately giving the
results, we pause, and thank the gods who have
disposed the mercurial mind of one of our near
neighbors to quietly settle down to ovarian statis-
tics. In the ovary of a pregnant potamian M.
Lpsueur counted twenty ripe eggs, ready to come
forth at the bidding of Dame Nature. Then he
saw a quantity of ova, varying in size from that
of a pin's head to the goodly volume of rotundity
which they attain, when the calcareous coat, which
is necessary for the protection of the egg when it
is exposed to the dangers of this world, is super-
added : what " the tottle of the whole" is, may
be ascertained by those who feel disposed to in-
quire of M. Lesueur ; and, if they will consult the
oracle, they will rise from the consultation wiser

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87

men, unless they have sounded all the shallows
and depths of testudinate life.

But enough, arid, for the reader who is not
zoologically disposed, more than enough. He
has been led, if he has condescended to follow,
from the land to the marsh, from the marsh to the
lake, stream, and river, the residences of the ra-
rious modifications of testudinate life. A short
repose should be placed at his disposal, before, in

the course of our narrative, he follows these great
rivers of the old and new world, in which the
fresh water tortoises disport themselves, into that
ocean in which all rivers, great and small, are
lost. But there, in that boundless waste of
waters, we shall find that Nature has modified the
Chelonian type into the Thalassian shape, which
occupies a distinguished reptilian place in the
present world, and in that which is gone forever,.

THE extremities modified for walking on land,
in the case of the Chersians, shuffling about in
marshes and ponds in the case of the Elodians,* and
swimming in rivers with a good garnish of claws
to enable the Potamians f to scramble upon banks
and logs, to say nothing of the help of the said
claws in enabling them to secure their prey, take, in
the Thalassians,! an unmistakable oar-like shape.
No half-measures would enable a turtle to row
placidly on the mirror-like sea, when

The air is calm, and on the level brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters plays,

or beat the billows when the ocean is agitated by
storms such as burst forth in tropical latitudes.
But these paddles have a double office to perform.
They are formed to act, not only as organs of
swimming, but as instruments of progression on
the tide-furrowed shore, when the females travel
up to deposit their eggs ; and to this end, in most
of the species, the paddle is furnished with one or
more nails, which greatly assist the animal in its
advance on land.

Only five well-defined recent species are known,
if Mr. Gray be right in considering Chdone vir-
gata and Chelonc maculosa of Dumeril and Bibron
as varieties of Chdone mydas ; and this existing
state of the limitation of the marine form of these
reptiles opens a new and most interesting point
of view, when compared with the fossil evidences
of the development of this sub-family in the
ancient seas of our globe. Professor Owen, in
his valuable History of British Fossil Reptiles,
describes no less than eleven well-defined fossil
species of chelone found in Britain, to say nothing
of fragments. Such a catalogue, as he justly ob-
serves, leads to conclusions of much greater inter-
est than the previous opinions respecting the
chelonites of the London clay could have sug-
gested.

Whilst (writes the professor) these fossils were
supposed to have belonged to a fresh water genus,
the difference between the present fauna and that
of the eocene period, in reference to the chelonian
order, was not very great ; since the Emys (cistuda)
Europew still abounds on the continent after which
it is named, and lives long in our own islands in
suitable localities. But the case assumes a very
different aspect when we come to the conviction
that the majority of the eocene chelonites belong
to the true marine genus chelone ; and that the
number of species of these extinct turtles already

* Marsh tortoises. \ River tortoises.

J Sea tortoises, or turtles.

obtained from so limited a space as the Isle of
Sheppy, exceeds that of the species of chelone now
known to exist throughout the globe.

The professor comes to no hasty conclusion,
when he states that the ancient ocean of the
eocene epoch was much less sparingly inhabited
by turtles than that which now washes the shores
of our globe ; and that these extinct turtles pre-
sented a greater variety of specific modifications
than are known in the seas of the warmer lati-
tudes of the present day. Nor does the inference
stop here ; for, as he well says in continua-
tion, the indications which the English eocene
turtles, in conjunction with other organic remains
from the same formation, afford of the warmer
climate of the latitude in which they lived, as
compared with that which prevails there in the
present day, accord with those which all the
organic remains of the oldest tertiary deposits
have hitherto yielded in reference to this interest-
ing point. We have already seen that some of
the fresh-water tortoises make the eggs and young
of crocodilians and other reptiles their prey, and
the conformation of some of these fossils furnishes
the author of the work here cited with another
generalizing observation.

After remarking that abundance of food must
have been produced under the influences of a
climate such as that which the fossil turtles en-
joyed, he proceeds to the inference that to some
of the extinct species — which, like the Chelone
longiceps and Chelone planimentum, exhibit a form
of head well adapted for penetrating the soil, or
with modifications that indicate an affinity to the
Trionyces — was assigned the task of checking the
undue increase of the now extinct crocodiles and
gavials of the same epoch and locality, by de-
vouring their eggs or their young, the trionyces
themselves becoming, probably in return, an occa
sional prey to the older individuals of the same
carnivorous saurians. Thus did the lex talionis
prevail long before lawyers stained paper with
their well-galled ink. Thus was the balance
kept up in bygone ages as it now is. The same
principle of mutual extermination was, and is,
and is to be ; and by this principle, which to the
uninitiated must wear somewhat of an Acheroatic
aspect, the greatest quantity of general happiness
is secured in what would otherwise be an over-
crowded world : but VCR victis.

The well-arched, thick-walled, wagon-proof,
portable castle, assigned by the distributive justice
of Nature to the larger slow land tortoises, and

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

those, consequently, more exposed to observatioi
and attacks, is in the turtles modified to suit the
element in which they principally live. The
carapace forming the roof is less highly arched
and both it and the floor or plastron are lighte
and less completely ossified ; but as the head can
not be drawn back under the carapace, as in the
land tortoises, it is fortified by an additional bonj
helmet.

Besides these true turtles another marine genu,
exists, differing remarkably from chelone ; this is
the coriaceous turtle, Sphargis, which has the
body incased in a sort of leathern armor, and has
no nails on the paddles. This form seems to
represent the soft fresh-water tortoises in some
degree.

The green turtle, (Chelone mydus,) now the
cynosure of every aldermanic eye, owes its Eng-
lish name to the hue of the delicate fat which
enriches the soup and various savory dishes that
form a course of turtle. Whether the Latin specific
name was conferred on it by the Knight of the
Polar Star from any punning justiciary allusion,
does not seem to be certain. Notwithstanding
the French names with which it is now the fash-
ion to adorn every plat, be it at city feast, great
club dinner to the lion of the day, or the more
refined repast served in the Apollo chamber of a
modern Lucullus, England may claim the honor
of availing itself of the resources of its West
Indian possessions, and making " turtle" famous.
The French were a long way behind. In Le
Cuisinier des Cuisiniers* there is not a single
receipt for dressing real turtle.

What the ideas of a Frenchman on the subject
of Potage en Tortue were, may be gathered from
the following :^

Potage en Tortue. — Ce potage, qui est aujour-
d'hui tres a la mode dans les grands maisons et
chez les bons restaurateurs, manque dans la plupart
des traites sur la cuisine. Beauvilliers, et Viard
dans le Cuisinier royal, sont les seuls qui en expo-
sent la recette, mais avec des variantes.

After this exordium one is hardly prepared for
the receipts themselves.

Maticres employees par Beauvilliers. — Mouton,
e"paule ou gigot, ou parures de Carre's, debris de
poissons, en quantite suffisante, dans un marmite,
blond de veau, bouquet de persil, aromates, basilic ;
la cuisson separe la chair des os. Le bouillon
pass6 au travers d'une serviette, et clarifie' avec des
blancs d'oeufs ; faire bouillir, reduire, ajouter du
vin de Madere ; la moitie d'une tete de veau,
echudee de^ la veille, desossee, cuite dans un
blanc, coupee par petits morceaux ; dans le bouil-
lon, vin de Madere ; poivre de cayenne, de kari ;
dans le potage, des morceaux de veau; jaunes
d'oeufs frais, durcis, a 1'instant du service.

Now for the Matter es employees par Viard:

Tranches de bceuf, parure de veau, poule ou
parure de volaille, moitie consomme et moitie'
blond de veau, carottes, oignons, cloux de girofle,
dans une marmite ; moitie" de tete de veau, degor-
gee et blanchie, coupee par petits morceaux dans

* Paris, 1825.

une autre marmite, petits piments enrage"es, macis
de muscade, consomme, vin de Madere, champig-
nons, ris de veau en tres petits morceaux, cre.tes
de cpqs, rognons, quenelles de volailles ; dans la
soupiere, ceufs poches et le potage dessus ; si le
potage n'est pas assez corse ou assez fort en piment,
glace de volaille, beurre de piment.

Fire burn and caldron bubble !
Very good potage no doubt — but no more like
tortue than I to Hercules ; and, even for the mock-
turtle here presented, any one may safely back
Birch of Cornhill against N the French artist.
When Cuvier last visited this country, and was
feasted by some of our philosophers at the Albion,
nothing struck him so much as the tortue, upon
which his memory long dwelt ; and yet he had
had the opportunity of testing the abilities of the
first cooks of his own country. Soyer and other
compatriots of his may have shone since that
time ; but formerly turtle was eminently English.
Nor is it of remote antiquity as an English dish
Not much more than a hundred years have passed
since its general introduction, and for a long time
it was comparatively rare. But steam, which
annihilates both space and time to make epicures
as well as lovers happy, now brings a regular and
rapid supply of really " fine lively turtle," very
different from the wasted invalids which our West
Indiamen of the olden time landed after their lag-
ging voyage. Bristol was famous for it ; and
some years ago the Montague Tavern bore away
the bell. There was the best turtle I ever tasted,
and thither did George IV. send for that which
graced his royal table. Whether the mantle has
descended on the shoulders of the present priest
of Comus who officiates at the Montague, those
of my readers, if I happen to have any, may
ascertain who go to that ancient town, and make
a pilgrimage up the hill to the " Parade," which
used to be odoriferous with the savory emanations
"rom the tavern redolent of sweet basil, the grosser
"umes of the kitchen sublimed by the perfume of
ftme-punch, /z/ne-sangaree, and limes themselves :
accompaniments, by the way, rarely, if ever, seen
in London ; where the lemon, fragrant as it is,
unsatisfactorily does duty for the lime, two or
three of which supreme condiments were placed
n the napkin of every guest when turtle was pre-
sented at Bristol.

Our own lamented Chantrey, who, though fully
alive to the merits of the good things of this
world, was one of the most unselfish and liberal
of men, had a story of a passage during one of
he city feasts at which he was present. The
jreat national sculptor — for truly great and truly
national he was — sat next to a functionary before
whom stood a large tureen of turtle-soup. This
-itizen instantly possessed himself of the ladle,
•arefully fished out the coarser parts, and offered
he plate containing them to Chantrey, who de-
lined.

" I watched," said he, " the progress of the
)late : at last it was set down before the lord-may-
r's chaplain ; and the expression of that man's
ace, when he beheld it, I shall never forget." The

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89

functionary went on helping till he had cleared
the soup of all but the green fat and richer parts,
the whole of which he piled up in a capacious
plate for himself. Then up spoke our sculptor
and said, — " If you will allow me to change my
mind, I'll take a little turtle;" and the waiter
who held the plate, placed it, to the horror of the
dispensing expectant, before Chantrey, who im-
mediately commenced spoon-exercise, as Jonathan
delicately describes such evolutions ; " and this I
did," said Chantrey, " to punish him for his
greed."

What was the unhappy functionary to do ?
His own tureen was exhausted, and, in a half-frantic
tone, he called to one of the waiters to bring him
some turtle. But at city feasts the guests are
very industrious, especially when turtle is the
order of the day ; and the waiter, after trying
about, brought back to our greedy citizen the
identical plate of fatless flesh which had so
astounded the chaplain, who had contrived to
exchange his unwelcome portion for one more
worthy of a sleek son of the Church : " and
then," Chantrey would add, " my attentive neigh-
bor's visage was awful to look upon!" There
was no help for it ; so the disconcerted functionary
betook himself to the rejected plate, with the
additional discomfiture of seeing Chantrey send
away his, still rich with calipee, fat, and fins.

But this is mild compared with scenes which
have arisen on such occasions in less refined times.
Something, indeed, may be allowed for the weak-
ness of human nature, and the excitement of the
moment, when

The tender morsels on the palate melt,
And all the force of cookery is felt.

But time was when the Graces seem to have been
altogether banished from the great civic feasts,
and the onslaught of the gastrophilists waxed fast
and furious. Hogarth has touched this in the
eighth plate of his inimitable " Industry and Idle-
ness," when the industrious 'prentice has grown
rich, and is Sheriff of London ; " representing to
us," as worthy Dr. Trusler observes, " at one
view, the various ways of what we call laying it
in." Quin declared that it was not safe to sit
down to a feast in one of the city halls without a
baske't-hilted knife and fork. At a much later
period, a well-known " special attorney," who had
fought his way well on every other stage, found
himself no match for those who surrounded him
on lord-mayor's day. Whenever he endeavored
to transfer a fat slice from the savory haunch be-
fore him to his own plate, it was instantly speared
by the forks of the foragers near him, and borne
away to theirs, till at last he was compelled to
resign the unequal contest, and lay down his din-
ner arms in despair, though he had got well into
" The Alderman's Walk." And yet civic hospi-
tality does its best to enable the catechists who are
invited to do their duty towards their neighbors,
as far as plenty is concerned. At a turtle-feast,
the usual allowance was, perhaps is — for there
has been no falling off of late in festal liberality

— six pounds, live weight, per head. Thus, in
August, 1808, at the Spanish dinner at the City
of London Tavern, 400 guests consumed 2500 Ibs.
of turtle, if the newspapers of that day are wor-
thy of credence. When we remember that the
turtle is but the prologue to the play, we may
form some notion of the performances of these
valiant trenchermen, who must have gone near to
rival the feats of some of the ancient heroes of
the table. They, indeed, have left on record
gastric achievements to be envied by aldermen of
the most giant appetite. Did not Maximin con-
sume forty pounds of flesh in a day — nay, occa-
sionally sixty pounds — moistening his repast with
a vessel of wine of the Capitol measure, contain-
ing about eight of our gallons ? Great as he was
in more senses than one, the brutal emperor, how-
ever, must yield the palm to Phagon, who, at one
dinner, consumed a whole boar, a hundred loaves,
a wether, and a little hog, washing all down with
more than an orca of wine. Claudius Albinus
seems to have had a sweet tooth, and a more re-
fined taste ; for one of his meals consisted of five
hundred dried figs, the callistruthiae of the Greeks,
one hundred Campanian peaches, ten melons of
Ossia, and twenty pounds of grapes from the
luscious vineyards of the blessed island of Leuce,
that paradise of the Euxine Sea. These delica-
cies paved the way for the volatile, consisting of
one hundred gnat-snappers ; and then the orifice
was satisfactorily closed upon forty oysters. Clau-
dius, in this sweeping supper, seems to have re-
versed the modern order of dishes, ending where
an epicure of the nineteenth century begins.
What his drinking capabilities were does not
appear. But the stern Romans were in the habit
of becoming somewhat hazy occasionally. Peo-
ple do not like to have their various weaknesses
paraded before the senate ; and Mark Antony bit-
terly paid off Cicero's philippics. The son of
the orator, by way of commentary, and bent on
eclipsing the fame of his father's murderer as the
greatest bibber of the empire, took off two gal-
lons at a draught. Nivellius Torquatus threw the
prowess of Marcus Cicero into the shade ; for, in
the presence of Tiberius, he drank off three gal-
lons without drawing breath ; and Firmus disposed
of two buckets full of wine without flinching ; to
say nothing of Offellius Buraetius, who spent the
whole of his life in making himself a thorough-
fare for wine. The accomplishment was worth
something in those days. Three bacchanalian
nights with Piso so endeared him to Tiberius —
whom the wags irreverently called Biberius — that
he made him praetor ; and for the same convivial
qualities, the emperor gave Pomponius Flaccus
the province of Syria. The road to preferment
generally, under his reign, seems to have been the
same rosy way, for " he also did prefer a man
that was unknown, and sought for the quaestor's
office, before the most noble men, for pledging at a
banquet an amphora of wine, that he drank to him.
And at that time, when the Lex Fannia was pub-
lished, the matter was come so far, that many of

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

the people of Rome would come drunk into the
senate-house, and so consult of the affaires of the
commonwealth." * Man is an imitative animal ;
and the debates in our own houses of parliament
occasionally exhibit symptoms that some of our
legislators have dined, though they may not have
exactly fulfilled that Greek symposial law that
required the boon companion not to quit his cups
till the morning star arose. Even in these degen-
erate days, there are not wanting examples of
those who have bid the liquid ruby flow copiously.
Quin frequently carried off six good bottles of
claret under his belt, after all the spirituous and
vinous accompaniments of a turtle dinner.

But neither calipash nor calipee gratified the
palates of the ancient Romans. The hammer of
Charon descended upon the Apicii and Lucullus
centuries before the Nereids, who sport under the
beams of the western star, sent the delicious offer-
ing to the epicures of the old world, although the
sea-nymphs of the East furnished the luxurious
•with an ornament for their tables, couches, and
the pillars of their houses, from another species. f
We can almost hear the lamentations of the fidg-
ety, niggardly, self-tormenting Mamurra, poor in
the midst of his riches, who

Testudineum mensus quater hexaclinon
Ingemuit citro nou satis esse suo.t

The consumption of tortoise shell at Rome for
ornamental purposes must have been very great ;
the very door-posts of the rich were inlaid with

M

The supply, occasionally, must have been more
than equal to the demand, if we may believe Vel-
leius Paterculus, who relates that, when Caesar
took Alexandria, the magazines were so rich in
tortoise shell that he proposed to make that highly-
prized ornament a principal feature in his African
triumph.

The first man that invented the cutting of tor-
toise shells into thin plates, therewith to seele beds,
tables, cupbords, and presses, was Carbilius Pollio,
a man very ingenious and inventive of such toies,
serving to riot and superfluous expense. ||

* Jonston. t Chelone imbricata.

t Martial, Epig. ix. 60. Juvenal also alludes to the
.uxury in his eleventh satire: —

Nemo inter curas et seria duxit habendum,
Qualis in Oceani fluctu testudo nataret,
Clarum Trojugenis factura, ac nobile fulcrum.

§ Familiar as is the passage, we cannot mar the beauty
of the Mantuan's verse by giving the sixth line alone:—
O Fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint
Agricolas ! quibus ipsa procul discordihus armis,
Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus.
Si non ingentem foribus domus alia superbis
Mane salulantum totis vomit aedihus undam ;
Ncc varios inhiant pulchr& testudine pastes,
Inhisasque auro vestes, Ephyreiaque aera ;
Alba neque Assvrio fucalur lana veneno,
Nee casia liquid! corrmnpitur usus olivi:
At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita,
Dives opum variarum, atlatis otia fundis,
Speluncae, vivique lacus, at frigida Tempe,
Mugitusque bourn, mollesque sub arbore somni
Non absunt.

H Holland's Pliny. And again, — "Cornelius Nepos
writeth, that before the victory of Sylla, who defeated

The carapace entire was frequently used for a
cradle and a bath for young children ; nor did the
warrior disdain it as a shield.

The size to which some of the species grew
was enormous, if we are to believe ^Elian, Pliny,
Diodorus, and others.

There he found Tortoises in the Indian sea so
great, that one only shel of them is sufficient for
the roufe of a dwelling house. And among the
Islands principally in the Red Sea, they use Tor-
toise shells for boats and wherries upon the water.

And, again, (book vi. c. 22,) Pliny, writing of
the inhabitants of the Island of Taprobane, states
that,

They take also a great pleasure and delight in
fishing, and especially in taking of tortoisses ; and
so great they are found there, that one of their
shels will serve to cover an house : and so the in-
habitants do employ them instead of roufes.

The largest skull of a turtle I ever saw is in
the noble museum of the Royal College of Sur-
geons of England. It is the cranium of a Log-
gerhead Turtle, (Chelone. caouanna,) and is of the
following portentous dimensions : —

Ft. In. Lin,
Length, in a straight line from the back \

margin of the mastoid to the fore end > 0 13 6

of the premaxillary, . . . . )

Breadth, in a straight line, .... 0 11 6

Height, including lower jaw, ... 0 90

Circumference (horizontal,) .... 3 40

And now a few words on the natural history
and capture of some of these Thalassians ; and
first, of the delicate species, the greenish color of
whose fat gives it one of its names, and is derived
from the turtle-grass on which it principally feeds
— the green turtle, Tortue franche of our pseudo-
republican neighbors ; Testudo mydas, Linn.; Che-
lone mydas of more modern zoologists.

The Atlantic Ocean and the West Indian seas
are enriched with this luscious esculent.

Turtle, (tortoises,) writes Sir Hans Sloane, are
of several sorts; those of the sea call'd green Tur-
tle, from their fats being of that colour, feed on
conches or shell fish, are very good victuals, and
sustain a great many, especially of the poorer sort
of the Island. They are brought in sloops, as the
season is for breeding or feeding, from the Cay-
manes, or south Cayes of Cuba, in which forty
sloops, part of one hundred and eighty, belonging
to Port Royal, are always imployed. They are
worth fifteen shillings apiece, best when with egg,
and brought or put into pens, or palisadoed places,
in the harbor of Port Royal, whence they are taken

Marius, VJTO dining tables, and no more there were
throughout Rome, all of silver. Fenestella saiih, that in
his time (and he died the last yere of the reigne of Ty-
berius Cassar the emperor) men began to bestow silver
upon their cupboords and side livery tables: and even
then also (by his saying) tortoise worke came in request,
and was much used. Howbeit, somewhat before his
daies, he writeth, that those cupboords were of wood,
round and solid, of one entire piece, and not much bigger
than the tables whereupon men eat their meat ; but when
hee was_ a young boy, they were foure square, and of many
peeces joyned together ; and then they began to be covered
over with thin boords or painels, either of maple or citron
wood." So that, after all, this is not the only age of
veneer.

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91

and killed as occasion requires. They are much
better when brought in first, than after languishing
in those pens for want of food.

Apicius certainly had Darteneuf on the hip
when, in reply to the strictures of the latter on
his not having made a voyage to Britain for the
purpose of eating oysters, the ghost of the Roman
retorted with the modern epicure's short-comings
on his confession that, when in the flesh, he had
not been to the West Indies to enjoy turtle.*

Sloane gives a somewhat startling account of
the effect of a turtle diet : —

They infect the blood of those feeding on them,
whence their shirts are yellow, and their skin and
face of the same color.

Our aldermen had better have an eye to their
linen and complexions. Sloane starts a theory on
the color of his transatlantic friends, whose under-
garments were "stained prodigiously:" —

This, I believe, (says he,) may be one of the
reasons of the complexion of our European inhab-
itants, which is changed, in some time, from white
to that of a yellowish color, and which proceeds
from this, as well as the jaundies, which is com-
mon, sea air, &c.

And then, he says, not without truth, that " all
sorts of Sea Tortle, except the green, are reckon'd
fishy and not good food."

In his chapter " of Quadrupeds which are ovipa-
rous, or lay eggs," he says —

The best, or green turtle, or tortoises, come to
the Caymanes once a-year to lay their eggs in the
sand, to be hatch 'd by the sun, and at that time
the turtlers take them in great numbers ; at other
times the turtles go to the south Cayes of Cuba,
there to feed on the sea-grass growing under water,
wherefore the turtlers go thither in quest of them ;
and it may be, four men in a sloop may bring in
thirty, forty, or fifty turtles, worth seventeen or
eighteen shillings a-piece, more or less, according
to their goodness. The female with egg is reck-
on'd the best ; they sometimes get their loading in
a day, but are usually six weeks in making the
voyage ; they feed on turtle, bisquet bread and
salt ; they catch the turtle with nets of yarn larger
than whipcord. When they come home they put

* Apicius. What grieves me most is, that 1 never eat
a Turtle. They tell me that it is absolutely the best of
all foods !

Darteneuf. Yes, I have heard the Americans say so ;
but I never eat any ; for in my time they were not brought
over to England.

Apicius. Never eat any turtle ! How didst thou dare
accuse me of not going to Sandwich, to eat oysters, and
didst not thyself take a trip to America, to not on tur-
tles ? But know, wretched man, that I am informed they
are now as plentiful in England as sturgeon. There are
turtle-bouts that go regularly to London and Bristol from
the West Indies. I have just seen a fat alderman, who
died m London last week, of a surfeit he got at a turtle
feast in the city.

Darteneuf. What does he say ? Does he tell you that
turtle is better than venison ?

Apicius. He says there was a haunch of venison un-
touched, while every mouth was employed on the turtle ;
.that he eat till he fell asleep in his chair, and that the
food was so wholesome, he should not have died, if he
had not unluckily caught cold in his sleep, which stopped
his perspiration and hurt his digestion.

Darteneuf. Alas ! how imperfect is human felicity, &c.
LYTTELTON'S Dialogues of the Dead. 3d edit. 1760.

them into the sea in four square penns, or palisa-
doed places, where they keep aiive till there be
occasion to kill them, which will be very long
sometimes, tho' the sooner they are killed after
taking, they are the fatter. The callipee, or under
part of the breast and belly bak'd, is reckoned the
best piece — the liver and fat are counted delicacies.

And then Sir Hans proceeds to repeat, as he
has in another part of his book, besides that abova
quoted, the statement that those who feed much
upon them discharge at their pores a yellow serum,
and that the fat is yellow, tastes like marrow, and
gives the skin a yellow hue — a statement which
will not surprise those who know that the bones
of pigs, in whose food madder is mixed, become
colored accordingly.

Such is Sloane's account of the Tesludo marina
vulgaris of Ray ; Jurucua Brasiliensibus, and Tat-
taruga Lusitanis, of the same ; Tortue franche of
Rochefort, Du Tertre, and Labat.

He then describes the Tcstudo marina Caou-
anna dicta, Tortue caouanne, Rochef. Labat, Ray,
Kaouanne of Du Tertre, calling it the Hawksbill
turtle, describing it as " very little differing from
the common sea sort, only in every part less,"
and " not so good victuals as the former, though
as common in these seas." This is probably the
Loggerhead turtle of authors.

Sloane then gives an account of the Testudo
caretla dicta, which I take to be the true hawksbill
turtle, and of which, he says, they "are chiefly
valued for their scales, commonly called tortoise
shell ; and are found with the others."

Pere Labat speaks of la tortue franche, the
green turtle, as " la seule espece qui soit verita-
blement bonne a manger ;" of le caret, the hawks-
bill, as furnishing "ecaille de tortue:" — " sa
chair," he adds, " n'est pas bonne a manger;"
he speaks of it as " d'une qualite purgative," as
the good father found to his cost ; and indulgence
in it nearly cost a reverend brother his life.

Of la caouanne, the loggerhead, he writes with
more correctness than Sloane, who probably saw
only young specimens, that it is " plus grande que
les deux autres. Son ecaille ne vaut rien. Sa
chair n'est pas meilleure,elle est toujours maigre,
filasseuse, coriace, et de mauvaise odeur. On ne
laisse pas de la sailer pour les Negres, & qui tout
est bon."

It is, .perhaps, too much to say, that the tor-
toiseshell of the loggerhead is entirely worthless,
though it is comparatively valueless ; and, in-
deed, that of the hawksbill is very inferior to the
true article produced by Chelone imbricata.

Labat tells us, that those who go to the turtle
islands or other localities to fish for the green and
hawksbill turtles, live on the flesh of turtles only
for three or four months, without bread, without
cassava — with nothing, in short, but the fat and
lean of those animals ; and he declares that, what-
ever maladies these men may have when they set
out upon this expedition, even if they should be
affected with the most loathsome, they return per-
fectly cured.

92

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

He describes at some length the methods of
capture. The first is, to watch them when they
go to lay their eggs* in the sand, or when they
come to reconnoitre ; and he says, that if their
traces are observed on the sand, and the observer
go to the same place on the seventeenth day after-
wards, he will infallibly find the turtle come for
the purpose of depositing her burden. She is then
turned on her back, and, being unable to regain her
usual position, is safe. But though a green turtle
thus turned is secure, because her carapace is com-
paratively flat, a hawksbill left in such a posture is
no more safe than a galapagos tortoise when laid
on its back, because the carapace of the hawksbill
is more convex, and the animal itself more active ;
the operator, therefore, after turning the turtle,
places great stones round it, so as to counteract its
efforts to regain its natural posture, or, as the
hawksbill is only sought for its shell, the flesh
being comparatively worthless, it is killed on the
spot.

The worthy father gives a hint to turtle-turners
to beware of their jaws, for they bite, particularly
the hawksbill, (caret,) furiously; and, if they can-
not take out the piece, will not let go while they
have life. The turtle-turners, therefore, carry a
little bludgeon with them, with which they give
the patient a rap on the head before they proceed
to turn it.

The second method of taking them is by strik-
ing them with a sort of spear or harpoon (varre)
when they come to the surface to breathe, or there
lie asleep. The adventurers go at night gener-
ally, where they have observed much cut turtle-
grass floating, for that is a certain sign that the
place is the haunt of turtles, who cut the grass in
feeding, and some of it rises to the surface. The
rest shall be told in the words of the graphic nar-
rator : —

Celai qui tient la varre est sur le bout on la
proue du canot. Le mot de varre est Espagnol, il
signifie une gaule ou perche ; celle dont on se sert
en cette peche est de sept a huit pieds de longueur
et d'un bon pouce de diametre, a peu pres comme
la hampe d'une halebarde. On fait entrer dans un
des bouts un cloud carre" de sept a huit pouces de
long y compris la douille dont il fait partie, cette
douille a une boucle ou anneau de fer, ou simple-
ment un trou, oil est attachee une longue corde
proprement roulee sur 1'avant du canot, oil un des
bouts est aussi attache, et la hampe est aussi at-
tachee a une. autre petite corde dont le varreur tient
un bout. Le varreur done e*tant debout sur 1'avant
du canot, la varre a la main droite, examine tout
autour de lui s'il voit paroitre quelque tortue, ce
qui est assez ais6 dans la nuit, parce qu'on voit
bouilloner la surface de 1'eau a 1'endroit oil la tor-
tue veut lever la tete pour souffler, ou si la tortue
dort sur 1'eau, ou qu'un male soit attache a une
femelle, ce qu'on appelle un cavalage, Pecaille qui
reluit et qui renechit la lumiere de la lune ou des
e*toiles la lui fait appercevoir aussitot, a quoi on

* According to Labat, a turtle of ordinary size lays as
many as two hundred and fifty eggs, of the size of ten-
nis-balls, and as round. The white, he says, never
hardens, however lo z it may be submitted to cookery,
hut the yolk becomes hard, like that of the common fowl.

doit ajouter que dans les nuits les plus obscurs, il
reste toujours sur la surface de la terre et des eaux
un peu de lumiere qui est suffisant a ceux qni se
couchent sur le ventre pour voir a une distance
assez considerable autour d'eux. Des qu'il apper-
$oit la tortue, il marque avec le bout de sa varre a
celui qui conduit le canot, le lieu oii il faut aller ;
et quand il est a portee de la tortue il la varre, c'est
a dire, il la frappe et la perce avec le cloud qui est
ante dans la hampe. Aussitot que la tortue se sent
blessee, elle fuit de toutes ses forces, et elle en-
traine avec elle le canot avec une tres grande vio-
lence ; le cloud qui est entre dans son ecaille ne la
quitte pas, et le varreur qui a retire sa hampe, s'en
sert pour enseigner a celui qui est a 1'arriere ou il
doit gouverner. A pres qu'elle a bien couru les
forces lui manquent, souvent meme elle etouffe
faule de venir sur 1'eau pour respirer. Quand le
varreur sent que la corde mollit, il la retire peu a
peu dans le canot, et s'approchant ainsi de la tortue
qu'il a fait revenir de 1'eau, morte ou extremement
affaiblee, il la prend par une partie et son com-
pagnon sur 1'autre et ils la mettent dans le canot,
et en vont chercher une autre.

II n'est pas necessaire qu'il y ait des ardillons au
fer de la varre, ni que le varreur fasse entrer le fer
gueres plus avant que 1'epaisseur de 1'ecaille, parce
qu'aussitot que la tortue sent la douleur que le cloud
lui fait en percant son ecaille, elle se resserre da
telle fagon qu'on a bien plus de peine a retirer le
cloud qu'on en avoit eu a le faire entrer.

The great rapidity with which one of these rep
tiles will run away with a boat ceases to be sur-
prising when it is remembered that they are fre-
quently found three feet and a half or four feet
long, and two feet or two feet and a half wide,
weighing three hundred pounds, and often more.
Labat, who makes this observation, remarks that it
is astonishing that wherever they are set down on
land on their plastron, however distant they may
be from the sea, to the sea they go without seek-
ing about, without hesitation, and in the most direct
line. The jolly Jesuit relates that he sometimes
had the pleasure of bestriding a turtle with another
person, when it carried them without difficulty,
and sufficiently fast.

Mais (he adds) c'est une voiture des plus rudes,
car comme elle ne peut se soutenir sur ses quatre
pattes toute a la fois, elle eleve le train de devant,
et semble egratigner la terre en s'elangant, pendant
que les pieds de derriere poussent en avant en fai-
sant un effort qui produit un mouvement qui secoue
et qui fatigue infiniment.

He tells a story of an Indian, slave to M. de la
Chardonniere. The slave was alone in a small
canoe, fishing with a line, when he saw a turtle
asleep on the surface of the sea. He quietly ap-
proached, and passed a noose of a stout cord, which
he chanced to have with him, round one of the pad-
dles of the turtle, the other end of the cord being
made fast to the bow of the canoe. The turtle
awoke, and set off with all speed, and at first the
Indian was under no apprehension at the rapidity
with which he was carried out to sea. Sitting in
the stern of his canoe, he steered with his paddle
so as to avoid the waves, Hoping that the turtle
would either get tired or be suffocated. But, alas !

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

93

he got capsized, or, as Jack says, turned the turtle,
losing his paddle, his knife, and all his fishing
tackle. Active as he was, he had all the difficulty
in the world to right his canoe. While he was
hard at work doing this, the turtle was acquiring
fresh strength and vigor, and when he had righted
his little bark it was soon upset again. In short,
this happened nine or ten times within a day and
two nights, during which he was towed by the
turtle without the possibility of cutting or detach-
ing the cord. At last this tartar of a turtle got
tired, and, as good luck would have it, made for a
shoal, where the Indian managed to kill it, being
himself half dead with hunger, thirst, and fatigue.

The third mode of capture noticed by Labat is
by setting nets, colored red so that the turtles may
not detect them, near the sandy shores where they
go to lay their eggs ; and he was present when, in
the evening, the nets were spread for a grande
pcche. He describes the nature of their oil or fat
to be so penetrating, that if it is placed on one side
of the hand, and rubbed in with a hot cloth, it will
make its way to the opposite side, and praises it as
excellent for rheumatism.

Catesby, in his Natural History of Canada, Flor-
ida, and the Bahama Islands, says : —

The sea-tortoise is by our sailors vulgarly called
turtle, whereof there are four distinct kinds ; the
green .turtle, the hawksbill, the loggerhead turtle,
and the trunk turtle. They are all eatable ; but
the green turtle is that which all the inhabitants in
America, that live between the tropics, subsist
much upon. They much excel the other kinds of
turtle, and are in great esteem for the wholesome
and agreeable food they afford.

Catesby was a good observer, and his informa-
tion may be generally relied on. He tells us that
all sorts of turtle, except the loggerhead, are tim-
orous, and make little resistance when taken ; but
that all the kinds during the season of love are very
furious and regardless of danger. The male and
female, he says, usually remain together about
fourteen days.

After describing the structure of the limbs as
more fitted for swimming than walking, he remarks
that .' .«',,'

They never go on shore but to lay their eggs,
which is in April ; they then crawl up from the
sea, above the flowing of high water, and dig a-
hole above two feet deep in the sand, into which
they drop in one night above an hundred eggs ;
at which time they are so intent on nature's work,
that they regard none that approach them, but will
drop their eggs in a hat, if held under them ; but
if they are disturbed before they begin to lay, they
will forsake the place and seek another. They lay
their eggs at three, and sometimes at four, differ-
ent times, there being fourteen days between every
time. * * When they have laid their complement
of eggs, they fill the hole with sand, and leave them
to be hatched by the heat of the sun, which is usu-
ally performed in about three weeks.

His description of the mode of capture varies
little from that of Labat, except that he says noth-
ing of nets.

7

The inhabitants of the Bahama Islands, by oftei
practice, are very dexterous in catching them, par-
ticularly the green turtle. In April they go ii>
little boats to the coast of Cuba, and other neigh-
boring islands, where, in the evening, especially in
moonlight nights, they watch the going and return
ing of the turtle to and from their nests ; at which
time they turn them on their backs, where they
leave them and proceed on turning all they meet,
for they cannot get on their feet again when once
turned. Some are so large that it requires three
men to turn one of them. The way by which tur-
tle are most commonly taken at the Bahama Islands,
is by striking them with a small iron peg of two
inches long ; this peg is put in a socket at the end
of a staff twelve feet long. Two men usually set
out for this work in a little light boat or canoe ;
one to row and gently steer the boat, while the
other stands at the head of it with his striker. The
turtle are sometimes discovered by their swimming
with their head and back out of the water ; but
they are oftenest discovered lying at the bottom, a
fathom or more deep. If the turtle perceives he is
discovered, he starts up to make his escape ; the
men in the boat pursuing him endeavor to keep
sight of him, which they often lose, and recover
again by the turtle putting his nose out of the water
to breathe ; thus they pursue him, one paddling or
rowing, while the other stands ready with his
striker. It is sometimes half an hour before he is
tired ; then he sinks at once to the bottom, which
gives them an opportunity of striking him, which
is by piercing the shell of the turtle through with
the iron peg, which slips out of the socket, but is
fastened by a string to the pole. If he is spent
and tired by being long pursued, he tamely sub-
mits when struck to be taken into the boat or hauled
ashore. There are men who by diving will get on
their backs, and by pressing down their hind part,
and raising the fore part of them by force, bring
them to the top of the water, while another slips a
noose about their necks.

There is nothing new under the sun. Hear
Pliny through the quaint pen of Philemon Holland :

Many waies the fishermen have to catch them,
but especially in this manner ; they use in the
morning, when the weather is calm and still, to
flote aloft upon the water, with their backs to be
seen all over ; and then they take such pleasure in
breathing freely and at libertie that they forget
themselves altogether ; insomuch as their shell in
this time is so hardened and baked with the sun,
that when they would they cannot dive and sinke
under the water again, but are forced against their
wills to flote above, and by that meanes are exposed
as a prey unto the fishermen. Some say that they
go forth in the night to land for to feed, where
with eating greedily they be wearie ; so that in
the morning, when they are returned again, they
fall soon asleep above the water, and keepe such a
snorting and routing in their sleepe, that they be-
wray where they be, and so are easily taken ; and
yet there must be three men about every one of
them ; and when they have sworn unto the tor-
toise, two of them turn him upon his backe, the
third casts accord or halter about him, as hee lyeth
with his belly upward, and then is he haled by
many more together to the land.

In the South Seas skilful divers get under the
turtles, and surprise them when so floating.

The spirit-stirring salmon-hunt in Redgauntlet

96

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

sea-tortoises, must be reminded that the sphargis,
as its name implies,* is so far from being mute,
that it utters sounds very near akin to the bellow-
ings of distress when entangled in the fatal net,
OT oppressed with wounds. The carapace and
plastron, with its longitudinal, string-like lines or
ribs, may have suggested the lyrical name accord-
ed to the species. We have said enough to put
those hungry gentlemen on their guard who may
feel disposed to consign it to the tureen. It at-
tains a great size. Individuals weighing 700 and
800 pounds have been taken on our coasts.
These were stragglers ; but instances are on rec-
ord of their having been captured, temptingly fat,
of the weight of 1500 or 1600 pounds. Nor do
some of the species of chelone stop at that point
with which the lovers of turtle are familiar.
Some of that genus have been taken with a cara-
pace measuring nearly seven feet in length, and
more than fifteen feet in circumference ; and have
turned the scale against from 800 to 900 pounds.

When first hatched, the shells of the young
turtles are said to be comparatively imperfect, and
the little animals have a blanched appearance.
Their welcome upon emerging into the light, as
they swarm out of the sand like ants from an ant-
hill, is but a rough one ; and few young animals
are surrounded with more dangers. They in-
stinctively make for the sea, but their numbers
are greatly reduced by predatory birds and other
enemies before it is reached ; and there and then
the hungry fishes wait for them open-mouthed.
Still, as in the case of all other races, the issue
of the battle of life is in their favor, till the species
dies out, like the extinct colossochelys, (Falconer,)
•whose weight must have been something enor-
mous, or, like that chimera-like form of the ancient
world, in which Nature seems freakishly to have
united the sauto-chelysian, or half-lizard, half-
tortoise shape, with the canines of a walrus.f

The testudinata figure largely in the ancient
pharmacopoeia, and they seem to have a claim to
the patronage of the deities of health equal, at
least, to that of the serpents. They must, more-
over, have been the terror of the Canidias of the
time.

The flesh of land-tortoises serveth wel in per-
fumes and suffumigations, for so it is as good as a
countercharm to put by and repell all sorceries and
inchantments ; a singular counterpoison also to
resist any venome whatsoever. Great store of tor-
toises be found in Affricke ; where they use to cut
away the head and feet, and then employ the rest of
the body as a soveraigne remedy against all poysons.

Tortoise pottage appears to have rivalled viper
brtth :—

If their flesh be eaten together with the broth
•wherein they are sodden, it is held to be very good
fer to discusse and scatter the wens called the
King's Evil, and to dissipat or resolve the hard-

Sifaqayita, to otter a loud sound or roar,
t Dicynodon. Discovered by A. G. Bain, Esq.. in
sandstone rocks at the south-eastern extremity of Africa ;
named and described by Professor Owen in Trans. Geol.
Soc., vol. vii., part 2.

nesse of the swelled spleene ; likewise to cure the
falling sicknes, and to drive away the fits thereof.
The bloud of tortoises clarifieth the eyesight and
dispatcheth the cataracts, if they be anointed there-
with. Many incorporat the said bloud in meale,
and keep them reduced into the forme of pils ;
which, when need requireth, they give in wine as
a present help for the poyson of all serpents, spiders,
and such like, yea, and the venom of toads. The
gail of tortoises mixt with Atticke hony, serveth
to cure the fiery rednesse of the eyes, if they be
anointed therewith ; the same is good to be dropt
into the wounds inflicted by the prick of scorpions.
The ashes of the tortoise shel incorporat with wine
and oile, and so wrought into a salve, heals the
chaps and ulcers of the feet.

These are but a few of the miracles of healing
effected by the application of this panacea of the
Roman apothecary's shop.

Nor are the remedies incorporated in the tur-
tles— the " sea-tortoises" — a whit less powerful or
numerous. We spare the catalogue of cures,
which those who are curious may read in the
marvellous pages of him who has been called the
martyr of nature ; only out of our benevolence,
and by way of throwing those numerous specifics
for the toothache that adorn those towering nuis-
ances, the advertising vans, into the shade, in-
forming the afflicted that, " Whosoever rubbeth
their teeth with tortoise bloud, and use so to do a
whole yeare together" — remember that — " shal be
freed from the pain thereof for ever."*

The ancient mariner — not Coleridge's — believed
that the foot of a tortoise put on board would stop
the way of the ship ; and the housewife of other
days had no doubt that the shell of a tortoise
placed on the pot as it simmered over the fire
would prevent it from boiling over.

The tortoise of ancient fable was sufficiently
sage, except when he prevailed on the eagle to
give him a lesson in flying, and suffered accord-
ingly. To say nothing of his race with the hare,
he was eminently reflective as well as persevering.
And though he was tempted to murmur at first
when he saw the lithe and leaping frogs clearing
at a bound a space which cost him long and sore
travel, as he dragged himself and his shell along
upon the earth — when he saw the eel and king
stork at work upon them, and how their unarmed
bodies exposed them to the stones thrown by a
mere child, he repented and said — " How much
better to bear the weight of this shielding shell,
than to be subject to so many forms of wounds and
death." And when he beheld lo dancing a frantic
hornpipe to the tune of a gadfly, did he not hug
himself, and glancing at his panoply, exclaim — " I
don't care for flies ?"f

To be sure, he was at times more honest than
polite ; as when, on receiving Jove's command to
meet the rest of animated nature on the occasion
of his nuptials with Juno, he returned the some-
what ungracious answer — oTxos <piio«, oTxos a-giu-
iot — " home, sweet home ; there 's no place like
home," — a reply which so roused the ire of tho

* Holland's Pliny. t Non curat testudo muscos.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

97

father of gods and men, that the fiat went forth —
" As his home is so dear to him, he shall never
go out of it." This was rather shocking at first ;
but our philosophical tortoise bowed to the decree,
observing, that he much preferred carrying his
house about with him to being a fixture, where
he might be condemned to disturbance by the
quarrels of his neighbors.

But why did Apelles paint his image under the
feet of Aphrodite ?* Why did Phidias make the
delicate foot of his chryselephantine statue rest
upon this sedentary emblem If

* Tardigrada, herbigrada, domiporta et sanguine cassa,
Sub pedibus Veneris Cous quam pinxit Apelles.

This must have been a different picture from that of the
celebrated Venus Anadyomene by the same hand, which
was, probably, in the splendid collection of Augustus be-
fore he transferred the masterpiece to the temple dedicated
by him to Julius Caesar. Ovid notices a painting which
may well pass for it, in his description of the finest works
in that magnificent palace. — Trist. ii., 527, 528.
t In the temple of Venus Urania.

As a hint to ladies to be quiet, and stay at
home — excellent things in woman.

Upon my word, sir !

The idea, madam, I assure you, is not mine.
You read Latin with the ease of a Roman matron.
No 1 Then ask your husband, son, or brother, te
do the following into English : —

Alma Venus quaenam haec facies, quid denotat ilia
Tesludo molli qua_m pede, Diva, premis ?

Me sic effinxit Phidias, sexumque referri
FEemineum nostra jussit ab effigie.

Quodque manere domi et tacitas decet esse puellas,
Supposuit pedibus talia signa meis.

The women wore wooden images of the reptile
to denote their silence and domesticity, as Lais
knew to her cost, when the Thessalian matrons
assassinated her with such ornaments. Over-
zealous worshippers were they of the celestial Ve-
nus, the good, the retiring, the personification of all
that is amiable, beautiful, and modest.

So stands the statue that enchants the world.

FEW of those who stand near some quarry in our
inland counties, surrounded by all the beauties of
British scenery, hill, and valley, down and field,
luxuriant with woods, carpeted with herbage, or
waving with corn, bestow a thought on the char-
acter of the rock beneath. It occurs not to many,
that where the grass now grows and the cattle low
the waves once flowed ; and that the ripple-mark
may still be seen on what was once the ribbed sea
sand.

To those who are unacquainted with geology,
it is startling to be told that the solid slab of stone
so marked, when last exposed thousands of years
ago, was part of the sandy shore over which the
animated beings, now blotted from the book of
life, wended their way, leaving, in many cases,
the traces of their steps, just before some great
convulsion of our planet changed the whole ap-
pearance of the surface, but spared these unmis-
takable records to tell the tale.

No one with any powers of generalization can
long study the system of animated nature without
being satisfied that he must search among the
wrecks of bygone ages for those forms which are
required to make it complete, and that in the fossil
fauna he will find the lost links of the broken chain.

Among the ichnolites, or fossil foot-prints,
which have attracted so much attention of late
years, those announced by Dr. Ogier Ward, as
proving the existence of a small four-footed ani-
mal at the period of the deposition of the new red
sandstone near Shrewsbury, were brought under
the notice of the British Association at Birming-
ham. They most nearly resembled those figured
in the paper on the new red sandstone of War-
wickshire, by Sir Roderick Murchison and Mr.
Strickland,* but differed in exhibiting more distinct
indications of the terminal claws, and less distinc-
tive impressions of the connecting web ; the inner-
most toe was less, and there was an impression
always at a distance from the fore-toes, like a
* Geol, Trans. Second Series, vol. v., pi. xxviii.

hind-toe pointing backwards, the point of which
only seemed to have touched the ground, remind-
ing the observer of such an impression as might
have been made by a wading bird, and of the
ornithichnites discovered by Dr. Hitchcock in the
Connecticut new red sandstone, which have beeu
referred to the grallatorial tribe of birds.

The American fossil footsteps were found at five
places near the banks of the river, within a distance
of thirty miles, at various depths beneath the su*-
rounding surface, in quarries of laminated flag-
stones. The inclination of the stone is from 5° to
30° ; and there is evidence to warrant the conclu-
sion, that the tracks were impressed before the
strata were so inclined. Many of these tracks,
clearly showing that they belonged to different
individuals and species, cross each other ; and the
footmarks are not unfrequently crowded together,
reminding one of the impressions left by the feet
of ducks, geese, and other birds, on the muddy
shore of the stream or pond frequented by them.
These footprints are referred by Professor Hitch-
cock to seven species at least, if not genera, of
very long-legged wading birds, varying in size
from that of a snipe to dimensions twice as great
as those of an ostrich. The steps are seen ia
regular succession on a continuous track, as of an
animal walking or running, the right and left foot
always occupying their proper places. At Mount
Thorn, near Northampton, were discovered four
nearly parallel tracks of a gigantic animal whose
foot was fifteen inches long, exclusive of the largest
claw, which was two inches in length. The toes
were broad and thick, and in one track appeared
a regular succession of six of these steps, four feet
distant from each other. The distance in other
tracks varied from four to six feet. Another foot-
mark extended to the length of from fifteen to
sixteen inches, without reckoning a remarkable
appendage extending backwards eight or nine
inches from the heel. The impressions of this
appendage present traces similar to what may be

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

made by wiry feathers or coarse bristles ; these
last appear to have sunk into the ground nearly an
inch. The toes had penetrated much deeper, and
the mud or sand appeared to have been raised into
a ridge rising several inches around their impres-
sions, reminding the observer of the elevation
round the track of an elephant over moist clay.
Intervals of six feet were noted as the length of
the stride of the impressor of this ornithichnite.
The bones of fishes only (Palaothrissum) had been
discovered in this impressed rock.

If Professor Hitchcock be right in his conclusion
that these enormous foot-prints are the vestiges of
feathered giants, there can be no doubt that they
justify the remark that they are of the highest
interest to the palaeontologist, as they establish the
new fact of the existence of birds at the early epoch
of the new red sandstone formation ; and further
show that some of the most ancient forms of that
class attained a size far exceeding that of the largest
among the feathered inhabitants of the present
world.

The discovery of the bones of the gigantic
Dinornis, (Owen,) have proved beyond all question
the last conclusion ; but the student will do well,
before he accepts the former, to investigate
thoroughly Professor Owen's papers on Labyrin-
thodon,* remembering that the toes of Dr. Hitch-
cock's giant were broad and thick. The footmarks
of that gigantic batrachian (Salamandro'ides, Jager
— Mastodonsaurus and Phytosaurus, of the same —
Chirotherium, Kaup) were impressed on a shore ;
and in some of the specimens of that petrified
strand were the impressions of drops of rain that
had fallen upon the strata while in the process of
formation. On the surface of one at Storeton,
where the impressions of the footmarks were large,
the depths of the holes made by the rain-drops on
different parts of the same footstep, varied with
the unequal pressure on the clay and sand, accord-
ing to the salient cushions and retiring hollows
of the animal's foot. The constancy of these
appearances upon an entire series of foot-prints,
in a long and continued track, showed that the
rain had fallen after the creature had passed.

The equable size of the casts of large drops that
cover the entire surface of the slab, (says Dr.
Buckland, in his address to the Geological Society
of London on this phenomenon,) except in the
parts impressed by the cushions of the feet, record
the falling of a shower of heavy drops on the day
in which this huge animal had marched along the
ancient strand ; hemispherical impressions of small
drops upon another stratum show it to have been
exposed to only a sprinkling of gentle rain that fell
at a moment of calm. In one small slab of new red
sandstone, found by Dr. Ward near Shrewsbury,
[where the remains which will presently be alluded
to were found,] we have a combination of proofs as
to metoric, hydrostatic, and locomotive phenomena,
which occurred at a time incalculably remote, in
the atmosphere, the water, and the quarter towards
which the animals were passing ; the latter is in-
dicated by the direction of the footsteps which

* Geol. Trans. Second Series.

form their tracks ; the size and curvatures of the
ripple-marks on the sand, now converted to sand-
stone, show the depth and direction of the current ;
the oblique impressions of the rain-drope register
the point from which the wind was blowing at or
about the time when the animals were passing.

But how was this record so firmly imprinted on
the stone? The answer is ready from the same
eloquent and accurate oracle : —

The clay impressed with these prints of rain-
drops acted as a mould, which transferred the form
of every drop to the lower surface of the next bed
of sand deposited upon it, so that entire surfaces of
several strata in the same quarry are respectively
covered with moulds and casts of drops of rain that
fell whilst the strata were in process of forma-
tion.*

No, you are not about to be dragged into a
treatise on ichnology, friendly reader ; though,
believe me, you will find the subject, pregnant as
it is with evidences of uncouth extinct forms that
have passed away from life forever, wending their
way over the shores of a half-formed world, amid
wind and rain, storm and sunshine, as marvellous,
ay, and as entertaining too, as a fairy tale. You
are only to be led to the contemplation of the
ichnolites from the Shrewsbury sandstone, as a fit
introduction to the crocodiles, which will next
claim your attention.

Professor Hitchcock, as we have seen, undoubt-
edly claims his ichnolites as due to the presence
of birds on the spot where they were impressed ;
but, as Professor Owen well observes, any evidence
of a warm-blooded and quick-breathing class of
animals at so remote a period as the new red
sandstone epoch, requires to be very closely sifted ;
and, accordingly, the chance of obtaining any
analogical facts, bearing upon Professor Hitch-
cock's ornithichnites, induced our professor to
spare no exertions to obtain further insight into
the problematical creature of the Grinsill quar-
ries.

Dr. Ward kept a sharp eye upon the quarrying
operations ; and soon, in addition to the footsteps,
fossils were, from time to time, found, secured,
and liberally sent up to the professor, who was
thus enabled to form a clear opinion of the animal
that had impressed the sands with its feet. The
result was, the professor's Description of an Ex
tinct Lacertian Reptile, Rhynchosaurus articeps,
(Owen,) of which the bones and foot-prints charac-
terize the Upper New Red Sandstone at Grinsill
near Shrewsbury, published in the seventh volume
of The Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical
Society. For the highly interesting details of
this masterly paper we must refer the reader to the
. memoir itself, which will well repay an attentive
perusal ; suffice it to say, that this rhynchosaur
turned out to be neither crocodilian, batrachian,
nor chelonian, though, in a degree, allied to each
of those tribes, and that the fortunate preservation

* Address delivered lo the Geological Society of London
on the 2lst February, 1840, by the Rev. W. Buckland,
D. D., President.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF. A NATURALIST.

99

of the skull brought to light modifications of the
lacertine structure leading towards the tortoises
and birds, which were before unknown.

Before we sketch the natural history of the
crocodiles, it may not be unamusing to pass
rapidly in review some of the legends with which
the ancients connected a form selected by the
Egyptians as the symbol of a cruel and revengeful
being. The horrible shape and detestable dispo-
sition ef the crocodile made it an apt representa-
tive of the murderer of Osiris ;* and when it was
regarded as the personification of Typhon, it must
be confessed that it looked the character of that
evil one well, as any one will allow who looks on
the devilish woodcut that surmounts the old French
quatrain : —

Lc Nil produit des monstres perilleux,
Lors que d'Egypte arrouse le pais.
Mais centre ceux, dont sommes esbahiz,
Le crocodile est le plus merveilleux.

The sculptor has done his best to make the
monster look decent as he appears on the robe of
the Nile in the celebrated statue ; but one of the
surrounding sixteen typical children finds himself
rather inconveniently near the open mouth of the
destroyer, and is represented as starting back ac-
cordingly ; while another lends him a hand to
help him out of the dangerous neighborhood.
Poor old Nilus ! he must have had warm work to
keep his crocodiles in anything like order when
the terror-stricken son of Clymene was hurried
by his father's runaway horses he knew not where,
and the quiet, steady Moon beheld with amaze-
ment her brother's chariot dashing along beneath
her own. The crocodilian commotion under that
smoking state of things must have been the cause
of his extremity of horror, for the Tanais, the
Ca'icus, the Lycormas, the Xanthus, the Maeander,
the Euphrates, the Ganges, the Danube, the Is-
menus, the Phasis, the Tagus, the Caister, whose
swans then sung their last and died ; the Rhine,
the Rhone, the Tiber — all suffered equally, and
stood their ground ; but,

Nilus in extremum ftfgit perterritus orbem
Occuluitque caput, quod adhuc latet.

Father Thames was happily out of the way, or
not sufficiently known to the polite world on that
occasion. His turn, however, is at hand. A
foreign prince and priest, shot from his proper
sphere, is coming down upon him ; but we will
venture to prophesy that he will not run away
like the affrighted Nile, but continue to go be-
tween his banks and look the Archbishop of West-
minster boldly in the face.

As the serpents had their Psylli, so the croco-
diles had their Tentyrita : —

Moreover, there is a kind of people that cary a
deadly hatred to the crocodile, and they be called
Tentyrites, of a certain isle even within Nilus,

* Osiris, the popular divinity, the ruler of the Nile, the
benign dispenser of plenty, had, for his antagonist and
destroyer, Typhon, the scorching desert wind, that dried
up the fructifying waters, bearing famine and death on
its wings, when it unseasonably prevailed.

which they inhabite. The men are but small of
stature, but in this quarrell against the crocodiles
they have hearts of lions, and it is wondrous to see
how resolute and courageous they are in this be-
halfe. Indeed this crocodile is a terrible beast to
them that flie from him ; but, contrary, let men
pursue him or make head againe, he runnes away
most cowardly. Now, these islanders be the only
men that dare encountre him in front. Over and
besides, they will take the river, and swim after
them ; nay, they will mount upon their backs, and
set them like horsemen ; and as they turn their
heads, with their mouths wide open to bite or
devour them, they will thrust a club or great cud-
gell into it crosse overthwart, and so holding hard
with both hands each end thereof, the one with the
right, and the other with the left, and ruling them
perforce (as it were) with a bit and bridle, bring
them to land, like prisoners ; when they have them
there, they will so fright them only with their
words and speech, that they compel them to cast
up and vomit those bodies againe to be enterred,
which they had swallowed but newly before. And
therefore it is, that this is the only isle which the
crocodiles will not swim to ; for the very smell and
sent of these Tentyrites is able to drive them away,
like as the Pselli, with their savor, put serpents to
flight. By report this beast seeth but badly in the
water ; but be they once without, they are most
quick-sighted. All the four winter months they
live in a cave and eat nothing at all. Some are of
opinion that this creature alone groweth all his life ;
and surely a great time he liveth.*

To say nothing of more ordinary methods of
capture, if a crocodile was only touched with the
feather of an ibis it instantly became motionless ;
and there was another mode, if old chroniclers are
to be believed, not unworthy of note. It was
thought a bitter and bright, as well as a novel
idea, when some ill-conditioned scapegrace sent a
looking-glass to an importunate Gorgon, who was
qualified for admission into the Ugly Club — if any
woman ever was, which we, with all gallantry
and humility, doubt — in the hope that the first
look at herself would be fatal. But here again
we have the old adage, Pereant qui ante nos, &c.
" There is nothing new," &c., forced upon us.
The sure way to settle a crocodile, according to
ancient practice, was to confront him with a mir-
ror, when he incontinently died of fright at his
own deformity.

" Crocodile tears" have become a proverb
somewhat musty ; and yet everybody may not
know that there was another version besides the
vulgar one, of working upon the kind-hearted
traveller by apparent distress, getting him within
reach, and then destroying him. It was held for
certain that when a crocodile had got hold of a
man and killed him, it consumed its prey com-
fortably enough till it came to the head, which
would have proved too hard a nut for our crocodile1
to crack, without pouring forth a copious shower
of tears as a solvent, which softened the skull,
and put the ravenous reptile in easy possession of
its tit-bit — the brain.

One of their horrible functions, among the In-

* Pliny.

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

Jians, was to act as the finishers of the law in
capital cases, as elephants were employed by
Asiatic autocrats not very many years since,* but
in a different manner, as may be well supposed.
The crocodile-executioners were kept without food
when judgment of death was anticipated ; and the
condemned wretch was dragged to the tank, where
the hungry monsters glared at him with their
green cannibal eyes, as the assistants deliberately
bound him hand and foot, and then tossed him alive
to the chasms of their gaping, serrated, clanking
jaws. They were also retained as guards in
Pegu ; the ditches of the fortifications being filled
with them.

The Quaxliones crocodiliiue, those plica; et serrcc
dialecticorum, as they have been called, took their
rise from certain stories in which the crocodile
figures. For instance, a woman was taking a
walk with her little son on the banks of the Nile ;
a lurking crocodile carried him off, saying, he
should be restored if his mother responded truly.

"Do I mean to give him up?" asked the
crocodile.

" No, you don't," answered the mother ; " and,
therefore, according to your rule, you ought."

Whether the mother ever got her son back
must be left to the judgment of those who have
been made to feel how many points of the law are
centred in possession, especially where crocodiles
are concerned.

The same story is the foundation of the croco-
diline question put in Lucian's dialogue : —

" Have you a son ?"

"What then?"

" If he was wandering near a river, and a croco-
dile should find him and carry him off, but should
promise to restore him upon your giving a true
answer to the question, whether it was intended to

* Mr. Sirr, in his entertaining book, Ceylon and the
Cingalese, (8vo. London, 1850, Shoberl,) mentions a
striking instance of the docility of one of these elephants.

During the reign of the last blood-stained king of
Kandy, the terrible custom which had long prevailed of
execution by elephants, who were trained to prolong the
suffering of the doomed criminal by crushing the limbs
before the coup de grace was given, prevailed.

One of the elephant-executioners was at that place
during Mr. Sirr's sojourn there, and he was desirous of
testing the sagacity and memory of the brute. It was of
huge size, and mottled, and stood quietly with the keeper
seated on its neck. The noble, who accompanied Mr.
Sirr and his party, desired the man to dismount and stand
on one side.

The chief gave the word of command—" Slay the
wretch !"

The elephant raised his trunk, and twined it as if grasp-
ing a human being, and then made motions as if he were
depositing the patient on the earth before him, then slow-
ly raised his forefoot, and placed it alternately upon the
spots where the limbs of the sufferer would nave been.
This he continued to do for some minutes ; and then, as
if satisfied that the bones must be crushed, raised his
trunk high above his head, and stood motionless.

The chief said — " Complete your work."

The elephant immediately placed one foot on the place
where the victim's abdomen would have been, and the
other upon the spot where the head must have rested,
appearing to exert his whole strength to crush the victim,
and trample out the remains of life.

The tyrant was dethroned in 1815 ; and since that time
the animal had never been called upon to execute his
horrible office.

do so or no, what would you say were the croco-
dile's intentions?"

" You ask me a perplexing question, truly."

But almost everything has its bright side, and
so has a crocodile. Did not one save good King
Minas when he tumbled into the water ? And
were they not reckoned admirable safeguards for
preventing robbers from crossing the river ? In
short, they made a very respectable figure among
the mob of animal and vegetable Egyptian deities,
and were treated accordingly, as we shall pres-
ently see. Silence is not only the gift, but the
attribute of the gods ; and, as the ancients believed
that a crocodile had no tongue, he had a pretty
safe claim, which, joined to his alleged foreknowl-
edge of the extent of the inundation of the Nile,
was all-sufficient for his deification. Hence, no
doubt existed of the salvation of the man devoured
by one of these reptiles. The sure road to heaven
went through a crocodile's maw ;* and even
those who were bitten by one were considered
peculiarly fortunate.

The priests were not slow in availing them-
selves of these articles of belief, which they them-
selves had invented, and accordingly they took
care to have tame Crocodiles ready to receive the
offerings of the faithful. Strabo saw one of these
at Arsinoe, that " city of the crocodiles," and an
apolaustic life, he seems to have led. Bread,
meat, and wine, the contributions of travellers and
pious neighbors, formed his ordinary diet. Strabo's
host — a man of consequence, and the guide of the
party in everything relating to sacred things — led
the way to the pond, carrying from the table a
small cake, some roasted meat, and a cup of spiced
wine well mulled. They found Suchos, in which
name the crocodile rejoiced, stretched at his ease
on the margin. Straightway did the priests ap-
proach him. Some opened his mouth, one acolyte
popped in the cake, another crammed down the
meat, and the whole was finished by pouring
down the wine ; when Suchos plunged into the
pond ajid swam over to the other side to take his
siesta. If many pilgrims visited his shrine with
similar offerings in the course of the day, the
deity must have occasionally afforded the awful
spectacle of " a drunken monster," second only to
that of Lablache's Caliban.

What a wondrous piece of acting that is ! The
brutal passion — the cunning ignorance — the mon-
ster lower than the man but higher than the brute
— something between a chimpanzee and humanity,
with a strong dash of his devilish dam in him,
are brought out as no actor but that great artist
could portray them ; and when the mass warms

up under the influence of Trinculo's bottle

But words cannot convey the personification ; go
and see him. Why will not some gifted master
write a Sicilian opera, if Ads and Galatea will
not suffice, and present Lablache as Polyphemus ?

* If a person was killed by a crocodile, or drowned in
the Nile, his body was embalmed by the priests, and de-
posited in the sacred tombs.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

101

All Europe would crowd to behold the incarna-
tion of the Cyclops.

But my pen is running away with me as usual,
and must be brought back to these well-fed and
well-appointed crocodiles, which were looked up
to with some faith as oracles of divination. If the
crocodile spontaneously took the cake, or other
food offered, it was a good omen ; but if the
offering was unheeded or rejected, the worst
might be expected. There was a dark story that
the priests concluded, from such a rejection, that
Ptolemy's death was near.

Geoffroy seemed to think that the Suchos was a
mild and inoffensive species, whose more gentle
nature led the Egyptians to deify and tame it ; but,
to say nothing of the fugitive characters relied on
by him as constituting specific difference — charac-
ters which can hardly be viewed as indicating
more than variety — it seems that the three croco-
dile mummies, so far from being specimens of
Geoffrey's Suchos, are identical with his Margina-
tus lacunnsus and complanatus* Souc or Souchis,
according to M. Champollion, indicates the Egyp-
tian name of Saturn ; and Suchos was, in all
probability, the proper name of the individual that
Strabo saw at Arsinoe. Thus Apis was the
sacred bull of Memphis ; that of Heliopolis was
Mnevis.

But, however this may be, there can be no
doubt that the animal was tamed by the ancients ;
and as little that proper treatment meets with the
same success now. Plutarch relates how the
crocodile can be made obedient to the human voice
and hand, opening its mouth and suffering its
teeth to be cleaned with a towel.

Crocodiles, says Herodotus,f are sacred with
some of the Egyptians ; but not so with others,
who treat them as enemies. Those who dwell
about Thebes and the lake Mceris look on them as
very sacred ; and they each train up a crocodile,
which is rendered quite tame. Into the ears of
these crocodiles they put crystal and gold ear-
rings, and adorn their fore-paws with bracelets.
They give them appointed and sacred food, treat-
ing them as well as possible while alive, and
when dead they embalm and bury them in the
sacred vaults. But the people who dwell about
the city Elephantine eat them, not considering
them sacred. They are not called crocodiles by
the Egyptians, but champse. The name of croco-
diles was given to them by the lonians because
they thought they resembled lizards,! which are
found in the hedges in their country. But as the
crocodile, in a state of nature, was not very likely

* Geoffroy founded his C. complanatus on mummies
which MM. Dumeril and Bibron assert are clearly speci-
mens of Crocodilus vulgaris.

t Eut. 69.

t Koozodetloi. InKircher's Egyptian dictionary, Pi-
souchi is made — but upon no sound foundation — the
Coptic name for a crocodile. Emsah, or hamsa, is stated
by the safest authorities to be the Coptic word from
which, with the feminine article prefixed, has come the
Arabic word limsati, now current on the banks of the
Nile. Herodotus, who was evidently aware of this name,
gives it under the form of xapya, (champsa.)

to find any careful attendant ready to rub his teeth
with a napkin, Nature, it seems, has sent him aa
animated feathered tooth-pick.

The following, says the Halicarnassian, is the
nature of the crocodile : — During the four coldest
months it does not eat ; though it has four feet, it
is amphibious. It lays its eggs on land, and
hatches them there. The greater part of the day
is spent on the dry ground, but the whole night
in the river, for in the night time the water is
warmer than the air and the dew. Of all living
things of which we know, this grows to be the
longest from the smallest beginning. It lays
eggs little larger than those of a goose, and
the young at first is suitable in size to the egg ;
but when grown, it reaches to the length of
seventeen cubits and more. It has the eyes of a
pig, and the teeth and projecting tusks are large
in proportion to the body. It is the only animal
that has no tongue ; it does not move the lower
jaw, but is the only animal that brings down its
upper jaw to the under one. It is furnished with
strong claws, and a skin covered with scales net
to be broken on the back.*

With the exception of the very pardonable mis-
take generally current with the ancients, in conse-
quence of their being deceived by appearances,
about the absence of the tongue and the want of
motion in the lower jaw, the description above
given may pass very creditably ; but then comes
a statement, for which we have. heard Herodotus
branded as a most daring fabulist.

It is blind in the water, continues the historian,
but very quick-sighted on land ; and because it
lives for the most part in the water its mouth is
filled with leeches. All other birds and beasts
avoid him, but he is at peace with the trochilus,
because he receives benefit from that bird. For
when the crocodile gets out of the water on land
and then opens its jaws, which it does most com-
monly towards the west, the trochilus enters its
mouth and swallows the leeches ; the crocodile is
so well pleased with this service that it never
hurts the trochilus. f

Upon this foundation succeeding writers have
raised their fantastic structures, and we proceed
to give one or two modes of telling the same
story : —

All the day time the crocodile keepeth upon the
land, but he passeth the night in the water ; and in
good regard of the season he doth the one and the
other. When he hath filled his belly with fishes,
he lieth to sleep upon the sands in the shore ; and
for that he is a great and greedie devourer, some-
what of the meat sticketh evermore between his
teeth. In regard whereof cometh the wren, a lit-
tle bird called there trochilos, and the king of birds
in Italy ; and shee for her victuals' sake, hoppeth
first about his mouth, falleth to pecking or picking
it with her little neb or bill, and so forward to the
teeth, which he cleanseth, and all to make him
gap. Then getteth shee within his mouth, which
he openeth the wider, by reason that he taketh so
great delight in this her scraping and scouring of

* Eut. 68.

t Ibid., Gary.

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

his teeth and chaws. Now when he is lulled as it
were fast asleep with this pleasure and content-
ment of his ; the rat of India, or ichneumon, spieth
his vantage, and seeing him lye thus broad gaping,
whippeth into his mouth, and shooteth himselfe
downe his throat as quicke as an arrow, and then
gnaweth a hole through his belly, and so killeth

Scaliger, somewhat scandalized that Pliny had
made the bird a wren, was of opinion that it
should be described ; and the trochilus then came
out of the size of a thrush, with an acute crested
feather, which it had the power of erecting, so as
to prick the palate of the crocodile if he should
close his jaws and shut her in. Aldrovand backs
this doctrine by a reference to Leo's work on
Africa, who declares that he saw on the banks of
islands in the middle of the Nile crocodiles sun-
ning themselves, and birds, about the size of a
thrush, flitting about them ; but after a short
space the birds flew away. His inquiries were
answered by a statement that portions of the fishes
and other animals on. which the crocodile feeds
stick about his teeth and breed worms, to his
great torment. The birds, perceiving the worms
when the crocodile gapes, come to feed upon them.
But the crocodile, as soon as he finds that all the
worms are eaten up, closes his mouth, and at-
tempts to swallow the bird that has entered, but,
being wounded by the sharp spine with which the
head of the bird is armed, gapes again and sets
the winged prisoner free.

The narrative of Herodotus has received cor-
roboration from the pen of the accomplished author
of Visits to Monasteries in the Levant.^

I will relate (says Mr. Curzon, in that amusing
and interesting book) a fact in natural history
which I was fortunate enough to witness, and
which, although it is mentioned so long ago as the
times of Herodotus, has not, I believe, been often
observed since : indeed, I have never met with any
traveller who has himself seen such an occur-
rence.

I had always a strong predilection for crocodile-
shooting, and had destroyed several of these dragons
of the waters. On one occasion I saw, a long way
off, a large one, twelve or fifteen feet long, lying
asleep under a perpendicular bank, about ten feet
high, on the margin of the river. I stopped the
boat at some distance ; and noting the place as well
as I could, I took a circuit inland, and came down
cautiously to the top of the bank, whence with a
heavy rifle I made sure of my ugly game. I had
already cut off his head in my imagination, and was
considering whether it should be stuffed with its
mouth open or shut. I peeped over the bank ;
there he was within ten feet of the sight of the
rifle. I was on the point of firing at his eye, when
I observed that he was attended by a bird called a
zic-zac. It is of the plover species, of a grayish
color, and as large as a small pigeon.

The bird was walking up and down close to the
crocodile's nose. I suppose I moved, for suddenly
it saw me, and instead of flying away, as any re-
spectable bird would have done, he jumped up
about a foot from the ground, screamed " Zic-zac !

* Holland's Pliny. t London : John Murray. 1849.

zic-zac!" with all the powers of his voice, «ind
dashed himself against the crocodile's face two or
three times. The great beast started up, and im-
mediately spying his danger, made a jump into the
air, and, dashing into the water with a splash which
covered me with mud, he dived into the river and
disappeared. The zic-zac to my increased admira-
tion— proud, apparently, of having saved his friend
— remained walking up and' down, uttering his ery,
as I thought, with an exulting voice, and standing
every now and then on the tips of his toes in a con-
ceited manner, which made me justly angry with
his impertinence. After having waited in vain for
some time, to see whether the crocodile would come
out again, I got up from the bank where I was ly-
ing, threw a clod of earth at the zic-zac, and came
back to the boat, feeling some consolation for the
loss of my game in having witnessed a circumstance
the truth of which has been disputed by several
writers on natural history.

The crocodile's protector was actuated, doubt-
less, by that self-interest which governs so many
social compacts ; and Herodotus, when he de-
scribes the bird as freeing the crocodile from his
troublesome parasites, only records an alliance
which is far from uncommon in the history of an-
imals. To say nothing of the familiar instances
of the daws, magpies, and starlings, that attend
upon our sheep and horned cattle, there are more
close alliances founded on a reciprocity of benefits.
Such, among the warm-blooded vertebrated ani-
mals, is the connection between the Buphaga
erythrohyncha — the beef-eater of the English, the
pique-bceuf of the French — and the oxen, camels,
and antelopes, which it frees from the larva that
burrow in their hides, for which service its feet
and beak are admirably adapted — the feet, armed
with strong claws, affording a firm hold on the
back of the animal, and the beak, fashioned so as
to dig and extract the maggots as neatly as an in-
strument combining the qualities of a lancet and
forceps, in skilful surgical hands, could perform
the operation. Such are the rhinoceros birds
mentioned by Mr. Gumming. Even among the
molluscous animals we have the association of the
pinna and the crab.

The rhinoceros birds were just as attentive to
their charge as the guard which deprived Mr.
Curzon of his " ugly game." A native had in-
formed Mr. Gumming that a white rhinoceros was
lying asleep in thick cover, and he accompanied
his guide to the spot. The rhinoceros was lying
asleep beneath a shady tree, and his appearance
reminded Mr. Gumming of an enormous hog.
The beast kept constantly flapping his ears, which,
he says, rhinoceroses invariably do when sleeping.
But before he could reach the proper distance to
fire, several rhinoceros birds by which he was at-
tended warned him of his impending danger by
sticking their bills into his ear, and uttering their
harsh, grating cry. Thus aroused, he suddenly
sprang to his feet, crashed away through the jun-
gle at a rapid rate, and Mr. Gumming saw him
no more. But it appears that it is not to the
rhinoceros alone that these guardians do good
service.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

103

These rhinoceros-birds (continues our mighty
banter) are constant attendants upon the hippopot-
amus and the four varieties of rhinoceros, their
object being to feed upon the ticks and other par-
asitic insects that swarm upon these animals.
They are of a grayish color, and are nearly as
large as a common thrush ; their voice is very sim-
ilar to that of the mistletoe thrush. Many a time
have these ever-watchful birds disappointed me in
my stalk, and tempted me to invoke an anathema
en their devoted heads. They are the best friends
the rhinoceros has, and rarely fail to awaken him,
even in his soundest nap. " Chuckuroo" perfectly
understands their warning, and, springing to his
feet, he generally looks about him in every direc-
tion, after which he invariably makes off. I have
often hunted a rhinoceros on horseback, which led
me a chase of many miles, and required a number
of shots before he fell, during which chase several
of these birds remained by the rhinoceros to the
last. They reminded me of mariners on the deck
of some bark sailing on the ocean, for they perched
along his back and sides ; and as each of my bul-
lets told on the shoulder of the rhinoceros they
ascended about six feet into the air, uttering their
harsh cry of alarm, and then resumed their position.
It sometimes happened that the lower branches of
trees, under which the rhinoceros passed, swept
them from their living deck, but they always re-
covered their former station ; they also adhere to
the rhinoceros during the night, I have often shot
these animals at midnight when drinking at the
fountains, and the birds, imagining they were
asleep, remained with. them till morning, and on
my approaching, before taking flight, they exerted
themselves to their utmost to awaken Chuckuroo
from his deep sleep.

Geoffroy was of opinion, and others agree with
him, that the Egyptian dotterel!,* first described
by Hasselquist, is the trochilos of Herodotus ; and
it is a curious instance of the perverseness of
systematists that they should have pressed the
last-mentioned name into their service to designate
those volatile animated gemsf which shoot by like
meteors in that western world which was unknown
to the ancients, and to which these brilliant birds
are exclusively confined. Linnaeus, who gives

* Ckaradrius jEgyptius, Linn. Hamet, Hippo's care-
ful and intelligent attendant, when told what Herodotus
and Aristotle had stated on this subject, expressed his
disbelief of the story, but said he knew the bird, which
he described pretty accurately. Mr. Mitchell took him
down to the museum, in the garden, when he at once
pointed out Hoplopterus spinosus, a spur-winged dotterell
or plover, as the bird he meant. This species, it appears,
is constantly found in the places where the crocodiles
land, and runs about hunting tor insects — small mollusca,
perhaps, and such things— when the crocodiles are lying
asleep. The appearance of the hunter immediately ex-
cites a noisy note from the plover, the crocodile wakes,
and the natives believe that the bird is the crocodile's
friend and watchman. The Sheigea Arabs call this bird
El sngda; the natives of Dongola call it El' um tisaad,
which, being interpreted, means the cousin or niece of
the crocodile. Mr. Curzon's narrative leads to the in-
ference of a much more intimate connexion between the
bird and the crocodile than a mere cry at the approach of
danger. The spur on each of the wings of hoplopterus is
nearly half an inch long. The reader will remember, in
one of the versions of the story, the sharp spine with
which the bird is said to be armed, and which Leo places
on its head.

t The humming-birds— TrockUidcc and Trochilius of
modern ornithologists— inhabiting America and the West
India islands.

the Egyptian dotterell a place among his charadrii,
(plovers,) makes no sign as to its being the trochi-
lus of Herodotus, and he adopts that word as the
specific name of the common wren of our hedges.*

In the grand battle between the hippopotami
and the crocodiles, represented on the plinth of
the statue of Nilus, a somewhat long-billed but
rather corpulent long-legged bird seems ready to
come to the assistance of a crocodile, which has a
hippopotamus fast by the nose. Another and
similar bird stands calmly before an open-mouthed
crocodile. If the sculptor intended these for
trochili, they have not much of the wren about
them, nor of the plover either. They may have
been meant for ibises looking on at the row.

Hasselquist declares that the crocodiles do in-
expressible mischief to the common people of
Upper Egypt, often killing and devouring women
who come to the river to fetch water, and children
playing on the shore or swimming in the river.
He relates that in the stomach of one dissected
before Mr. Barton, the English consul, the bones
of the legs and arms of a woman, with the rings
which Egyptian women wear as ornaments, were
found. The fishermen, whose nets are broken by
the crocodiles if they come in his way, are, he
says, often exposed to great danger from those
terrible monsters.

Sonnini relates that they are formidable to the
inhabitants, and that in some places they are
obliged to form in the river an enclosure of stakes
and fagots, that the women, in drawing water,
may not have their legs carried off by the croco-
diles. The Catholics, he adds, are persuaded
that those hideous destroyers will attack a Mus-
sulman, but forbear to injure a Christian, and
bathe without fear in the Nile, while the Mahome-
tans, acknowledging the miracle, dare not expose
themselves there.

After alluding to the veneration which the
crocodile experienced in some parts of Egypt in
remote times, and the fury with which it was pur-
sued and destroyed in others, Sonnini remarks
that in his time the crocodile was neither rever-
enced nor destroyed. Banished to the most south-
ern part of Egypt, they assemble there, he says,
in vast numbers. They are to be seen when the
sun is at its height, their head above the water,
immovable, and appearing at a distance like large
pieces of floating wood, gliding slowly down with
the current and basking in the heat, in which they
delight. He shot several, approaching very close,
which, as they were not often disturbed, he was
able to do ; but he does not appear to have bagged
any like Mr. Cumming, with whose best and
worst dog the crocodiles of South Africa made off.
In the neighborhood of Thebes, the small boat in
which Sonnini sailed up the river was often sur-
rounded by crocodiles. They saw the party pass
with indifference, neither discovering fear nor any
cruel intent at the approach of the voyagers. The
noise of the musket-shot alone disturbed their
tranquillity. Sonnini asserts that they never rise
* Motacilla trochilus.

104

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

upon vessels, and that, how little soever the gun-
wales may be raised above the water, nothing
is to be apprehended from their attacks. But he
advises the navigator to avoid thrusting his arms
or legs into the stream, or he will run the risk
of getting them snapped off by the sharp-pointed
teeth of the crocodiles. Very alert in the water,
which, he says, they cleave with rapidity, they
make, according to him, but slow progress on
dry land ; and were it not that their slime color
and the coat of mud with which they cover them-
selves in walking along the miry shores of the
Nile, disguise them so as to render them less per-
ceptible, and thus expose men to be surprised by
them, they are, he declares, by no means so dan-
gerous out of the watery element, in which they
are stronger and more at liberty.

The portrait of the ichneumon " que les Egyp-
tiens nomment Rat de Pharaon," is given in the
Portraits d'Animaux,* with the following morsel
of poesy : —

Voy le portrait du Rat de Pharaon,

Q,ui chasse aux rats, comme fait la Belette ;

Au demeurant fort cauteleuse beste,

Qui autrement est nominee Ichneumon.

But not a word is said about the romance of its
leaping into the gaping mouths of crocodiles, glid-
ing into their bellies, and eating their way out of
the entrails of the reptiles, which the ancient au-
thors and many of the moderns loved to dwell
upon, but which Sonnini treats with the contempt
that it deserves. The natural food of the ichneu-
mons consists of rats, birds, eggs, and reptiles ;
and if some of them have been seen springing on
little crocodiles with fury when presented to them,
the act was the effect of their general appetite for
such game generally, and not of a particular an-
tipathy. It would, as Sonnini observes, be at
least equally reasonable to say that their mission
on earth was to prevent the too great propagation
of .chickens, to which they are far more hostile
than to crocodiles. In his time, and in more
than half of northern Egypt, that is to say, in
that part comprised between the Mediterranean
Sea and the city of Siout, ichneumons were very
common, although there were no crocodiles there ;
while they were more rare in Upper Egypt,
where the crocodiles were more numerous. The
great scourge of the crocodiles is a tortoise called
thirse by the Arabians — one of the Potamians,
probably — which, when the little crocodiles just
hatched repair to the river, springs upon them
and devours them. Persons of undoubted veraci-
ty at Thebais told Sonnini that out of fifty young
crocodiles, the produce of one hatching, seven
only had escaped the thirse, which is also a keen
devourer of the crocodile's eggs. Seven little
crocodiles, each eleven inches long, were brought
to the French traveller when he was at Kous.
Their teeth were already very sharp, and they
appeared to have come into the world with the
true crocodile spirit. The Egyptian who took
them said that there were about fifty of them to-

* 1657.

gether, but that it was impossible to catch them
all because the mother arrived unexpectedly, and
was eager to fly at him. From such small begin-
nings are these enormous monsters developed.
Sonnini saw at Negaude the skin of a crocodile
thirty feet long and four broad ; and he was as-
sured that some had been found in the Nile of the
length of fifty feet. One thing is certain, that
the number of teeth was as great in the newly-
hatched reptiles as in those that had attained to
that enormous size.

Herodotus* gives an amusing account of the
bait with which the ancient fishermen bobbed
for crocodiles. Having well covered his hook
with the chine of a hog, he makes, according to
the historian, a cast into the middle of the river ;
and then producing a young live pig on the
bank, he beats it till he makes it squeal. The
crocodile, attracted by the piercing cry, goes in
the direction whence it proceeds, meets with the
baited hook, swallows it, is struck, in angling
phrase, and the tackle being none of the finest, is
drawn bodily to land. But when the crocodile is
there the angler would have but a hard time of it,
if he did not instantly set to work to plaster up
the eyes of his game with mud. When he has
done this, it is managed very easily ; but he has a
world of trouble before the operation is completed.
Hasselquist found a fishing-hook in the palate
of one which he dissected ; and the eggs which
he procured, larger than that of a hen but less
than that of a goose, covered with a hard crust, of
a rugged surface, and of a cloudy white color,
were taken out of a female thirty feet long.

It was to be expected that the Roman popu-
lace, whose cry for novelty at the great shows
only equalled that for bread, would be familiar-
ized with the monsters of the Nile : —

Marcus Scaurus was the first man who, in his
plaies and games that he set out in his aedileship,
made a show of one water-horse and four croco-
diles, swimming in a poole or mote made for the
time during these solemnities.!

This seems to have been a zoological exhibi-
tion, and nothing more ; but the crocodiles were
soon brought forward for more cruel purposes, and
to pander to the popular lust for blood. Augustus
turned six-and-thirty into the amphitheatre at once.
The shout raised by the thousands who beheld that
monstrous entrance, could only have been equalled
by the breathless silence with which they saw the
bold, calm gladiators advance upon their frightful
antagonists. The bestiarii, who were sworn to face
any living thing that their lord and master chose to
oppose to them, did their butcherly duty that day,
for not one of the thirty-six was left alive.

Most probably the conquerors feasted on them
afterwards, for there was a saying that

A crocodile is good meat,
All save the head and feet ;

though a little musky, perhaps ; and the head was

* Eut. 70.

t Holland's Pliny.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

105

not without its use in the Roman pharmacopoeia, as,
for instance : —

The eie-teeth of the said crocodile filled up with
frankincense, (for hollow they be,) and tied to any
part of the body, put by those periodicall fevers
which use to return at sett and certaine hours ; but
then the patient must not for five dayes together
see the party who fastened the same about him.
And they report likewise, that the little gravel
stones taken out of their belly be of the same vertue
to drive away the shaking fits of agues when they
are comming, which is the cause that the JEgyp-
tians use ordinarily to anoint their sicke folk with
the fat of this beast.

The blood administered to the eyes was supposed
to promote clearness of vision. The fat bore a high
price, for he who was anointed with it might fear-
lessly dive in the Nile, though surrounded by croco-
diles. It was reckoned excellent good for the bites
of serpents, according to Dioscorides ; and Leo
lauds its efficacy in the case of old ulcers, and even
of cancers. Boiled in water with vinegar, it was
held a sovereign remedy for the toothache, if the
patient washed his face with the decoction ; and no
doubt it did the sufferers as much good as any nos-
trum now advertised. The skin, if carried round
fields or gardens, and afterwards suspended there,
was held to be a sure defence against approaching
hailstorms. In modern times not only is the musk
of the glands held precious, (or was, not long ago,)
but other parts of the animal were used for medici-
nal purposes. Hasselquist notices the " folliculus,"
of the bigness of a hazel nut, under the shoulders of
the old crocodiles, containing a thick matter which
smells like musk. The Egyptians, he says, are
very anxious to get this when they kill a crocodile,
it being a perfume much esteemed by the grandees,
but Hasselquist did not find one in any that he dis-
sected. He states that the Egyptians use the fat
against the rheumatism and stiffness of the tendons,
esteeming it a powerful remedy outwardly applied.

He mentions the gall, as being considered good
for the eyes ; and that, and the eyes of the crocodiles
themselves, as used by the Egyptians for purposes
about which we care not to be particular.

I am not aware that a true crocodile has ever
been exhibited alive in this country. I never saw
one, though I have seen many alligators of all
sizes. It would not be very difficult to bring over
a Nilotic crocodile ; and if the Zoological Society
of London were to show one with its attendant dot-
terell and the hippopotamus,* the attraction would

* 6th Oct. — I to the Zoological Garden, and in my way
to the hippopotamus came upon a late hatch of six young
black swans not long out of the egg, walking with their
affectionate mother, the proud father strutting in advance
ready to do battle with all comers, and looking as if he
defied the world. Looked in upon Jenny Lind, who had
broken her horn at the base, or rather loosened it at the
suture, so that it went cmite back. But the keeper set it
cleverly, and it is now in place, exalted, like that of her
namesake by Brother Jonathan ; so that she carries her
head as proudly and symmetrically as any giraffe of
them all.

Tho great tortoise had cuddled into a corner of his
house, as if he felt the approach of winter.

Hippo was in his bath. When he sinks he puts back
his ears, and closes them to keep out the water. A large

be strong. The clever keepers of that establish-
ment would soon reconcile them to each other, and
present another " united happy family" to the won-
dering spectators.

Without wearying the reader with anatomical
details, we would draw attention to certain pecu-
liarities in the organization of the crocodilian
family, which are not only essential to its well-
being, but indicate that approximation of one
form to another of which every observer who stud-
ies animated nature is constantly reminded.

The cervical vertebrae are furnished with a sort
of false ribs, which impede lateral motion ; and,
indeed, the general structure of the vertebral col-
umn, as far as the pelvis, combined with the ab-
dominal ribs, renders it difficult for the crocodilidee
to bend their bodies sideways ; whence the notion
of throwing them out when in pursuit by doub-
ling back. There is a story of an Englishman
running before a large alligator which came out
of the lake Nicaragua, and was gaining on him
fast. He would have been soon overtaken by his
grim pursuer, had not some Spaniards called to
him to run in a circle and baffle it by compell-
ing it to resort to the laborious operation of turn-
ing, if it should be bent on continuing the pur-
suit. That an alligator can bend its body and
tail so as to bring head and tail together I have
proved. I took an alligator between five and six
feet long, at the Zoological Garden in the Re-
gent's Park, by the tail, and lifted it off its legs,
when, by what certainly appeared to be a violent
effort, it bent its body so as to reach my hand with
its head. I had a glove on, but the reptile bit it
through, without, however, wounding my hand.

The abdominal ribs, which form a sort of plas-
tron for the protection of the belly, in addition to
the false and ordinary ribs, do not reach up to the
spine, and seem to be the result of an ossification
of the tendinous portion of the recti muscles.
True clavicles there are none, but, as in the rest
of the Saurian tribe, the coracoi'd apophyses are
attached to the breast-bone. The lungs of rep-
tiles generally reach down into the abdomen ; but
such is not the case with the crocodilians, and

vegetable marrow was thrown to him by Hamet. He
mumbled it for some time in the water, and below the
surface as well as above, making an impression on the
fruit but not breaking it. When below the surface he
would let it out of his mouth, and then rise after it as it
floated to the top, trying his young teeth upon it. At
last his vegetable appetite appeared to be roused. He
brought it to one of the steps of his bath, and, reposing,
set to work upon it in good earnest, with all but his head
still in the water, succeeded in breaking it, bit off pieces,
chewed them with a slow, champing, snapping motion,
without any lateral grinding, and swallowed them. He
had previously been offered green maize, which he
mumbled, broke, and played with, but did not eat, so far
as I could see. Boiled carrots and kohl-rube were more
to his taste ; and he had eaten freely of them before the
experiment of the raw vegetable marrow was made. All
this looks like a healthy state of stomach, and I cannot
help hoping that his careful attendants will bring him
through the winter. He was rather fractious at first on
being left, but is now reconciled to the absence of his
kind Hamet at night, and sleeps by himself very com-
fortably. In short, his conduct entirely justifies the
epithet conferred on him by Mr. Dickens, who has im-
mortalized " The Good Hippopotamus."

106

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

some fleshy fibres adhering to that part of the per-
itoneum which covers the liver, remind the ob-
server of a diaphragm. This organization, com-
bined with their trilocular heart, where the blood
coming from the lungs is not mingled with the
venous portion of that fluid, which comes from
the body, so completely as it is in other reptiles,
approximates, though in no great degree, the croc-
odilians to the warm-blooded quadrupeds. As
in the tortoises, the auditory bone and the ptery-
goid apophyses are fixed to the skull.

But the jaws, which in the chelonians are
edentulous, are furnished with numerous large
conical teeth of unequal length, implanted in a
single row in the thickness of the upper and low-
er maxillary bones, in separate cavities, each of
which may be looked upon as a true alveolus or
socket. This formidable array is constantly kept
up in good order and condition by a provision
which insures a constant supply of serviceable
teeth. Each tooth is hollowed at the base, so as
to become the case or sheath of the tooth of
greater size destined to replace it ; so that, in the
crocodiles, the operation of teething is always
painlessly going on : nor does the number of the
teeth vary according to age. The pressure of the
rising tooth causes an absorption of the hollow base
of the old one ; and as the former advances the
latter dwindles, till it drops out and is succeeded
by the new one. It need hardly be observed
that great solidity and strength result from this
double gomphosis ; while, to add to the firmness
of the terrible apparatus, the sockets are directed
obliquely from front to rear. Each tooth is, so
to speak, insulated ; and a gum, or at least what
does duty for a gum, covers the bony edges of
the jaws whence they spring. •

The depressed and elongated body and tail are
shielded on the back by solid carinated scutch-
eons. The scales of the belly are squared, com-
paratively delicate, and smooth. The tail is long-
er than the body, compressed laterally, and its
scales are elevated into a central ridge. The
fore-feet are furnished with five toes, the hind-feet
with four. All the toes are armed with claws,
and more or less webbed. The nostrils open at
the end of the muzzle, and are raised and fur-
nished with crescent-shaped slits. This elevation
is very strongly marked in the Gavials or Gharri-
als, and enables the animal to lie floating with the
nostrils above the water without exposing much
of the head. They are closed by valves when
the creature descends. The fleshy flat tongue is
attached very nearly up to the edges ; whence the
notion of the ancients that the crocodile had none.
This conformation prevents, in a great measure,
the routing out of leeches, &c., by muscular ac-
tion, and accounts for the necessity of external aid
in freeing the mouth from annoying parasites.
The lower jaw is prolonged backwards beyond the
skull, and the gape is proportionably elongated.
Hence, when the animal raises its head and
throws it a little backwards on opening the mouth
by the depression of the lower jaw, it has the ap-

pearance of moving its upper jaw, whence the
error of the ancients in that respect.

Cuvier observes that the crocodiles cannot swal-
low when in the water, but the evidence of those
who have seen alligators in their fishing expedi-
tions hardly supports this assertion. It is true
that such witnesses relate, that, after having seized
the fish beneath the surface, the captor rises above
it, and occasionally tosses the prey into the air.
as if to get rid of the water taken in at the
time of the seizure ; but there can be no question
that, on such occasions, the fish is swallowed by
the alligator without leaving the water ; though
the latter repairs to the land for the purpose of
deveuring such land animals as it may have
succeeded in surprising and drowning, after they
have undergone such a degree of decomposition as
renders their fibre tender and more easily divided
by crocodilian teeth. With all due submission,
then, to the high authority of the great French
zoologist, his position may be doubted ; and, in-
deed, the careful adaptation of a part of its organ-
ization to the requirements of the animal goes far to
contradict it. This conformation we shall endeav-
or to explain with as little technicality as possible.
If the interior of the mouth of a crocodile 01
alligator be examined, the roof of the palate will
be found nearly flat, and not pierced by the
extremities of the nasal fossa, as in the greater
number of other reptiles. No ; the posterior na-
sal apertures open in the pharynx behind the pala-
tine veil, which is sufficiently elongated to over-
spread that portion of the roof which is in front
of the glottis, or opening of the windpipe. Indeed,
it is probable that the crocodiles are the only rep-
tiles that have a true pharynx, in other words, a
vestibule common to the mouth, the posterior nos-
trils, the larynx or windpipe, and the oesophagus
or gullet. This arrangement of the parts in com-
bination with the muscular structure of the tongue,
the bone of which, or os hyoides, has a peculiar
expansion, produces a sort of disk or valve, which
can be lifted and applied to the velum palati above,
so as effectually to protect the glottis and perform
the office of the epiglottis in mammiferous animals,
conferring on the crocodile a peculiar power of
deglutition and respiration when it has seized its
prey below the surface of the water, or has
dragged it down from the land. The same admi-
rable machinery comes also into play in carrying
on respiration, when the animal lies with its
muzzle alone above the surface of the water.

The eggs of the crocodile are covered v.ith a
hard shell, and are as large as those of a goose,
but not so oval. The female is said to guard the
nest or place of deposit, and to bestow maternal
care upon the young during some months.

The form is widely spread. Asia, Africa, and
America, have it. There is no authentic record
of its ever having inhabited Europe, in the present
state of the world at least ; unless we are to give
credit to the assertion of Malte-Brun, that one
was taken in the Rhone some two centuries ago.
The fifth quarter of the globe, Australasia, has not

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107

as yet been found to possess it. The muzzle of
the crocodiles is not so wide as that of the alliga-
tors or caymans ; and some of the Asiatic species,
the gavials* for example, have the jaws elongated
into a narrow snout, with a rounded termination,
reminding one in some degree of the beak of a
gigantic spoonbill armed with teeth.

The alligators, according to some, derive their
name from the Portuguese word lagarto, signify-
ing a lizard ; some make it a modification of the
Indian word legateer, or alkgater ; and others,
again, suppose that it is simply a corruption of the
words al lagatore,} the inhabitants of the lake or
lagoon — for travellers agree generally in stating
that the caymans are never found in the rapids, or
even in the running part of the stream, but in
creeks, lagoons, or back waters. There is this
difference, also, between them and the true croco-
diles, that whereas the latter frequently descend
beyond the brackish water of great rivers, even
into the sea — the greater species that inhabits the
Ganges for example — and have been known to
swim from island to island where the distance
has been considerable, no such migrations have
been generally recorded on the pait of the alli-
gators, which, it has been said, never quit
the fresh water. J When, after the intense heats
of summer, the cold season approaches, the alliga-
tors bury themselves in the mud of some stagnant
pool, and there remain concealed and comfortable,
in the sort of death-in-life state of hibernation, till
the genial breath of spring calls them again into
active life. Then, and as the summer advances,
multitudes may be seen in the unfrequented waters
of South America, their huge flat heads floating
among the luxuriant nymphaea — such as Queen
Victoria's own water-lily, and other aquatic
plants, with which the surface is, as it were, car-
peted— or basking on the sunny banks in a dozing
state, when the day is at the hottest. They
probably have a feathered attendant, as the true
crocodiles have, for a bird has been seen quietly
perched on an alligator's snout.

Like the poacher, their principal time of fishing
is in the night, when they assemble in large com-
panies, drive the fish before them, with loud bel-
lowings that may be heard a mile off, into some
retired creek, and take up a position at the mouth
of it. Then the work of destruction begins.
Diving under the crowded shoal, the alligators
seize the prey, not unfrequently using their tails to

* More properly, garrhials.

t Sloane, who writes allagator, allegator, alagarta, and
alagartos, derives it from the Spanish alagarta, a lizard.

t But note. Sir Hans Sloane, in his Jamaica, speak-
ing of the shoals between Port Royal and Passage Fort,
and of the corals, starfishes, and echini, which there
abound, says that " alienators are often drawn on shoar
in the senne-nels by the fishermen, whose nets are gener-
ally broken by them ;" and he speaks of one which was
afterwards taken, as stated at p. 34 of this book, that
used to do abundance of mischief to the people's cattle
" in the neighborhood of this bay, having his regular
courses to look for prey." And Sloane further remarks,
that "They are very common on the coasts and deep
rivers of Jamaica." Catesby, too, states, that they fre-
quent salt rivers near the sea, as well as streams of fresh
water, fresh and salt lakes.

sweep the terrified fish which attempt to escape,
towards their gaping mouths, while the shores re-
sound with the clanking of their jaws. Some
have supposed that the musky secretion of the
glands beneath the throat has attraction for the fish,
as the anglers of old were used to anoint their baits
with perfumed unguents to draw the finny race to
their hooks. But, although fish form the principal
food of the alligators, they not unfrequently seize
on land animals, which, if too large to be swal-
lowed whole, they sink "beneath, the bank till it
becomes what venison-eaters term rather high,
when it is brought out and devoured at leisure on
the bank. Some of them have been known to at-
tack men while bathing or swimming across rivers ;
and there goes a saying, that they prefer the flesh
of a negro to any other delicacy. Sonnini, when
he notices the belief above referred to, that the
Christian bears a charmed life against the croco-
dile, while the Mussulman is devoured, states that
he has read somewhere that in Western Africa,
the reptile not only prefers the negro, but never
touches the white Christian.

Like several fishes, gold and silver fish and the
carp for example, the alligators live at their ease
in waters of a very high temperature. Bartram
found great numbers, both alligators and fish, in a
spring near the Mosquito River in Florida, strongly
impregnated with vitriol, and nearly at boiling
point where it issued from the earth.

At St. Domingo, M. Ricord had opportunities
of witnessing the mode in which reproduction is
carried on among the crocodilians of that island.
In April and May, he tells us, the female deposits
from twenty to twenty-five eggs, more or less, in
the sand without much care, and indeed hardly
covering them. He met with them occasionally
in the lime which the masons had left on the riv-
er's bank. According to his reckoning, and if the
temperature be sufficiently genial, the young come
forth five or six inches in length on the fortieth
day. They are hatched without aid, and as they
are able to exist without nourishment while extri-
cating themselves from the egg, the female is in
no haste to bring it to them ; but she leads them
towards the water and into the mud, where she
disgorges half-digested food for their nourishment.
The male, he says, takes no notice of them.
They retain for some time the umbilical cicatrice
whereby the vitellus was absorbed while they
were in the egg.*

Like the young turtles, many of them are de-
stroyed by their numerous enemies in their way to
the river, and before they get into deep water.

* A collector who had taken the contents of one of these
nests, brought the eggs to the house where he was living,
and put them into his room on the first floor. One day
he went out, leaving the door of his room open, and on
his return beheld a swarm of young alligators coming
down stairs. Another procured a number of these eggs
just before he sailed for England, and put them into one
of his chests. Towards the end of the voyage he had oc-
casion to open the chest where he had stowed away the
eggs, and found a legion of these black imps among his
shirts and stockings. Some of these young alligators
arrived alive and well in this country.

108

LEAVES^FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

Vultures devour them both in the egg and on their
exclusion^; and ravenous fishes thin their ranks as
soon as they reach the element in which those who
survive are to pass so much of their existence.

The flesh of alligators is eaten by the Indians,
and I have been assured by those who have par-
taken of it, that the tail of a young alligator sliced
and treated like veal cutlets bears no distant
resemblance to that dish.

Of their ravenous and ferocious disposition
there can be little doubt, and stories illustrative of
it are not uncommon. Bontius relates, that a
man who had conducted a horse to drink was fierce-
ly attacked by an enormous one, and if the latter
had not suddenly sprung away, both man and
horse would have been in danger of their lives.
Acosta records the brasery of an Indian father,
whose little son had been seized by an alligator
that plunged with his pr»y into the depths of the
river. The father, a strong and skilful swimmer,
armed with a short sword, leaped in after the rep-
tile, dived under it, and by a succession of vigor-
ous stabs in the belly compelled the monster to
make for the bank, where it deposited the child
half-dead. Mr. Waterton is not the only rider
who has bestridden one of these river Bucephali.
He mounted an alligator. Adanson witnessed and
shared in an engagement with a true crocodile.
The negroes, it appears, in the neighborhood of the
river Senegal, boldly attack these monsters ; and
on one occasion a negro discovered a crocodile,
seven feet long, asleep, among some bushes at the
foot of a tree near the banks of the river. The
negro stealthily crept up, and inflicted a deep
wound on the side of the reptile's neck. The
crocodile with one sweep of his tail knocked the
negro off his legs ; but he rose instantly, and
slipped a rope over the crocodile's muzzle, while
one of his companions secured the formidable tail.
Then Adanson leaped on the crocodile's back, and
kept it down while the negro drew out the knife
which he had left sticking in the wound, and cut
off his antagonist's head. Another author men-
tions one of the garrison of Fort St. Louis who
used frequently to amuse himself with these duels,
and always with success ; till at last he was so
terribly wounded in one of those combats, that he
must have been killed outright if some of his
comrades had not come to the rescue.

Sir Hans Sloane was offered the stuffed skin
of an alligator nineteen feet long when he was at
Jamaica, but he could not accept of it on account
of its size, " wanting room to stow it." The story
of its capture, as related by him, is curious.
The people in the neighborhood of the bay be-
tween Port Royal and Passage Fort having suffered
great loss of cattle by its depredations, a dog was
used as a bait, with a piece of wood tied to a cord,
the further end of which was made fast to a bed-
post. The reptile, coming round as usual every
night, seized the dog, was taken by the piece of
wood, which stuck across his throat, in his strug-
gles drew the bed to the window, and waked the
people, " who killed the alligator which had done

them much mischief." Sir Hans also records that
there was " a pottle of stones" in the belly of one
nine feet long. Ravenous as the alligators are,
they are, like serpents and tortoises, capable of
enduring a very long fast. Browne, in his Natu-
ral History of the same island which Sloane so
ably illustrated, remarks that they are observed to
live for many months without any visible suste-
nance ; which experiment, he says, is frequently
tried in Jamaica by tying their jaws with wire, and
putting them thus tied up into a pond, well, or
water-tub, where they often lie for a considerable
time, rising to the surface from time to time for
breath. He also asserts, that on opening the an-
imal the stomach is generally found charged with
stones of a pointed oval, but flattened shape, to
which they seem to have been worn in its bowels.

Doubtless (adds the worthy doctor) it swallows
them, not only for nourishment, which is evident
from the attrition and solution of their surfaces, but
also to help its digestion, and to stir up the oscilla-
tions of the slothful fibres of its stomach, as many
other creatures do. Some people think it swal-
lowed them to keep them easier under water at
times ; but how reasonable soever this conjecture
may seem to some people, it will not take with such
as are better acquainted with the nature of aquatic
animals.

Catesby* thus draws their portraits : —

In Jamaica, and many parts of the continent,
they are found above twenty feet in length ; they
cannot be more terrible in their aspect than they are
formidable and mischievous in their natures, spar-
ing neither man nor beast they can surprise, pulling
them under water, that, being dead, they may with
greater facility, and without struggle or resistance,
devour them. As quadrupeds do not so often
come in their way, they mostly subsist on fish ; but
as Providence, for the preservation, or to prevent
the extinction, of defenceless creatures, hath, in
many instances, restrained the devouring appetites
of voracious animals by some impediment or other,
so this destructive monster, by the close connexion
of the joints of his vertebrae, can neither swim
nor run any other ways than straight forward, and
is consequently disabled from turning with that
agility requisite to catch his prey by pursuit.
Therefore they do it by surprise, in the water as
well as by land ; for effecting of which Nature
seems, in some measure, to have recompensed their
want of agility, by giving them a power of deceiv-
ing and catching their prey, by a sagacity peculiar
to them, as well as by the outward form and color
of their body — which on land resembles an old dirty
log or tree ; and, in the water, frequently lies float-
ing on the surface, and there has the like appear-
ance— by which, and his silent artifice, fish, fowl,
turtle, and all other animals, are deceived, suddenly
catched, and devoured.

Catesby also mentions their habit of swallowing
stones and other hard substances, not, as he thinks,
to help digestion, but to distend and prevent the
contraction of their intestines when they are empty.
In the greater number of many which he opened
nothing appeared but chumps of light wood and
pieces of pine-tree coal, some of which weighed

* Carolina.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

109

eight pounds, and were reduced and worn so smooth
from their original angular roughness, that they
seemed to have remained there many months.

Dr. Buckland, in his Bridgewaler Treatise, well
observes, that in the living subgenera of the croc-
odilian family we see the elongated and slender
beak of the gavial constructed for feeding on fishes ;
whilst the shorter and stronger snout of the broad-
nosed crocodiles and alligators gives them the
power of seizing and devouring quadrupeds that
come to the banks of rivers in hot countries to
drink. As there were scarcely any mammalia
during the secondary periods, while the waters
were abundant, we might, a priori, expect, he
remarks, that if any crocodilian forms then existed,
they would most nearly resemble the modern gavial.
Accordingly, those genera only which have elon-
gated beaks have been found in formations anterior
to, and including the chalk ; whilst the true
crocodiles, with a short and broad snout like the
alligator, appear for the first time in strata of the
tertiary periods in which the remains of mammalia
abound.

Though neither crocodile nor alligator exists in
Europe, nor ever, I believe, has existed there since
that quarter of the globe was peopled, there was a
time when this now temperate island must have
teemed with animals only able to exist in warm
latitudes, and when its hotter clime presented a
congregation of all the crocodilian forms now so
widely scattered and separated. What geograph-
ical changes has the world undergone since that
time ! How different was the face of this fair
island before the eocene deposits were formed !

At the present day the conditions of earth, air,
water, and warmth, which are indispensable to the
existence and propagation of these most gigantic of
living saurians, concur only in the tropical or
warmer temperate latitudes of the globe. Croco-
diles, gavials, and alligators, now require, in order
to put forth in full vigor the powers of their cold-
blooded constitution, the stimulus of a large amount
of solar heat, with ample verge of watery space for
the evolutions which they practise in the capture
and disposal of their prey. Marshes with lakes —
extensive estuaries — large rivers, such as the Gam-
bia and Niger, that traverse the pestilential tracts
of Africa — or those that inundate the country
through which they run, either periodically, as
the Nile for example, or with less regularity, like
the Ganges ; or which bear a broader current of

tepid water along boundless forests and savannas,
like those ploughed in ever-varying channels by the
force of the mighty Amazon or Oronooko — such
form the theatres of the destructive existence of the
carnivorous and predacious crocodilian reptiles.*

Well may the gifted professor ask, What must
have been the extent and configuration of the
eocene continent which was drained by the rivers
that deposited the masses of clay and sand, accu-
mulated in some parts of the London and Hamp-
shire basins to the height of one thousand feet, and
forming the graveyard of countless crocodiles and
gavials 1 whither trended that great stream, once
the haunt of alligators, .the resort of tapir-like
quadrupeds, the sandy bed of which is now exposed
on the up-heaved face of Hordwell Cliff?

No one is better qualified to give an answer to
such questions than the deep-thinking and eloquent
querist. Everything must fade after the vivid
picture here presented, and with it we close the
scene : —

Had any of the human kind existed and traversed
the land where now the base of Britain rises from
the ocean, he might have witnessed the gavial
cleaving the waters of its native river with the ve-
locity of an arrow, and ever and anon rearing its
slender snout above the waves, and making the banks
reecho with the loud and sharp snappings of its
formidably-armed jaws ; he might have watched
the deadly struggle between the crocodile and pa-
leeothere, and have been himself warned by the
hoarse and deep bellowings of the alligator from
the dangerous vicinity of its retreat. Our fossil
evidences supply us with ample materials for this
most strange picture of the animal life of ancient
Britain, and what adds to the singularity and inter-
est of the restored tableau vivant is the fact, that it
could not now be produced in any part of the world.
The same forms of crocodilian reptiles, it is true,
still exist, but the habitats of the gavial and the
alligator are wide asunder, thousands of miles of
land and ocean intervening ; one is peculiar to the
tropical rivers of continental Asia, the other is re-
stricted to the warmer latitudes of North and South
America ; both forms are excluded from Africa, in
the rivers of which continent true crocodiles alone
are found. Not one representative of the crocodil-
ian order naturally exists in any part of Europe ;
yet every form of the order once flourished in close
proximity to each other in a territory which now
forms part of England .f

* Owen's History of British Fossil Reptile*.
t Ibid.

PART XIII.

Mettez les deux chameleons ensemble
Celuy d'Egypte, et celui d'Arabie ;
On trouvera difference en leur vie,
Mesme en couleur 1'un 1'autre ne ressemble,

Says the quatrain with which the portrait of the
chameleon* is enriched in the Portraits d? Oyseaux,
Animaux, Serpens, Herbes, Arbres, Hommes el
Femmes, observez par P. Belon du Mans, and the
record is true. Of this curious form of the lacer-

* The ancients wrote of an herb of the same name
which grew among the rocks on the sea-shore, and
changed the color of its flowers thrice a day.

8

tine race there are several species, and every year
many arrive in this country to linger out an
unnatural existence of a few weeks.

In a state of freedom, and in its natural haunts,
the chameleon would seem to be a very different
being from the torpid invalid seen here in confine-
ment. Hasselquist speaks almost rapturously of
it, calling it an " elegant creature." He tells us
that it is frequently found in the neighborhood of
Smyrna, particularly near the village Sedizeud.
There he describes it as climbing the trees, and
running among the stones. The people of the

no

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

country told him that it lived in hollow trees.
Hasselquist was not an eye-witness of this habit ;
but often saw it climb on the branches of the olive,
plane, and other trees. He had seen the chame-
leon of Egypt ; but observes that it is less than
the Asiatic, and is not often met with.

When Hasselquist made all the inquiry he could
concerning the nature of the animal, in a place
where it was so frequently found, the inhabitants
told him that it would assume the color of a piece
of cloth, or other painted or colored substance,
which might be put before it. Some assured him
that it lived only on air, but others told him that
they had seen it catching a sort of very small flies.

When the hypocritical king inquires, " How
fares our cousin Hamlet?" the Prince of Den-
inark replies, " Excellent, i' faith, of the came-
lion's dish ; I eate the ayre promise-cramm'd, you
cannot feed capons so."

These qualities, of changing color and living on
air, have been attributed to it from the earliest
times. The first is well-founded ; the last fabu-
lous, but the fable has been fortified by the power
possessed by the reptile of living in apparently
good health for a long time — many weeks — with-
•out visibly taking any sustenance.

In the stomach of one dissected by Hasselquist,
he found the remains of various insects, tipulae,
coccinellae, and butterflies ; and in its droppings,
he found part of an entire ear of barley, which he
characterizes justly as very singular.* He kept
one alive for a considerable time, and applied him-
self to observations on its habits.

He could never see that it assumed the color of
any painted object presented to its view, though
he made many experiments with all kinds of colors,
on different things — flowers, cloth, paintings, &c.
Its natural color was iron-gray, or black mixed
with a little gray. This it sometimes changed,
and became entirely of a brimstone yellow. That
was the color which he saw it most frequently
assume, with the exception of the hue first men-
tioned. He had seen it change to a darker yellow,
approaching somewhat to a green, sometimes to a
lighter ; at which time it was more inclined to a
white than a yellow. He did not observe, that it
assumed any more colors ; such as red, blue, pur-
ple, &c. ; and, for that reason, was inclined to
believe that all which has been said concerning the
changing and shifting of colors in this animal,
consisted only in this, that on certain occasions it
changes the dark color, which seems to be natural
to it, into yellow of various shades. He observed
that his reptile more particularly did it on two
occasions ; one was, when he exposed it to the
hot beams of the sun ; and the other, when he
made it angry by pointing at it with his finger.
When it was changing from black to yellow, the
soles of its feet, its head, and the bag under its
throat began first to alter — an alteration which

* The presence of the grain may be accounted for by
the presence of an insect on it, when the chameleon,
with the tip of its adhesive tongue, may have brought
away the grain, with its natural prey.

was afterwards continued over the whole body.
He saw it several times speckled, or marked with
large spots of both colors over the whole body,
which gave it an elegant appearance. When it
was of an iron-gray color, it extended its sides or
ribs and hypochondria, which made the skin sit
close to the body, and it appeared plump and
handsome ; but as soon as it turned yellow, it
contracted those parts, appearing thin, empty, lean,
and ugly ; and the nearer it approached in color
to white, the emptier and uglier it seemed ; but
it appeared worse, in regard to shape, when it was
speckled.

Hasselquist kept this creature alive from the
8th of March to the 1st of April, without afford-
ing it an opportunity of taking any food. This it
much to be regretted, because, in its native climate,
there can be little doubt that, from its vivacity, it
would have fed freely, and the powers of absti-
nence of the animal had been tested again and
again. Notwithstanding its fast, it was nimble
and lively during the greater part of the time,
climbing up and down in its cage, fond of being
near the light, and constantly rolling its eyes. At
last Hasselquist could plainly perceive that the
victim waxed lean and suffered from hunger ; but
the Swede was obdurate, though he saw that it
could no longer hold fast by the bars of its cage,
from which it fell through weakness, when a
turtle, a thirse probably, which was kept in the
same room, bit it, and hastened its death.

Before I came to the resolution induced by the
death of poor Binny, my tame beaver, a friend
gave me a living chameleon, which remained with
me nearly two months. It was winter, and every
precaution was adopted to make the poor reptile
as comfortable as possible. It lived in a wicker
cage, to the bars of which it clung with feet and
tail ; but, after it had been with me a few days, it
would leave the cage and establish itself on the
ornamental work of the iron fender before the fire.
Soon it began to recognize me, surveying me with
a knowing roll of its singular optics, opened in
the centre of the shagreen-like globes of the eyes.
It then would leave the bars of the cage for my
hand, the warmth of which seemed to comfort it,
and would remain in it till I transferred it to the
warm fender, which was its favorite post. Cling-
ing with its feet and tail, with one eye directed
backwards towards me, and with the other for-
wards, scanning the fire as if it were looking for the
faces of other chameleons in it, the creature would
remain motionless for hours enjoying the genial tem-
perature. During the whole time it was with me
it never took any nourishment, though meal-worms
and other insects were produced for it. When
they were presented it would roll its eye and bring
it to bear upon them; but neither Mrs. M., the
good old housekeeper, who was so fond of Binny,
nor myself, ever saw it take one, nor was one
ever missed from among those presented to it.
The housekeeper was at her wits' end what to do
for it, till at last she became pacified, fully believ-
ing that it fed upon air ; for, notwithstanding its

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

Ill

abstinence, it did not apparently fall away. But
it was distressing to watch its strict fast day after
day, and yet day after day I hoped this long fast
would be broken, and did not like to abandon it.
I was the more anxious to get it to feed, because
it was full of eggs in the progress of development,
which must have made great demands on its con-
stitution, and I had frequently seen chameleons
take insects freely ; of which more anon. One
facetious friend would never call it anything but
Martha Taylor, in memory, I suppose, of the fast-
ing woman of Derbyshire, who, in consequence
of a blow on the back, fell into such a prostration
of appetite, that she took hardly any sustenance but
some drops with a feather, from Christmas 1667,
for thirteen months, sleeping but little all the time.
After laying a large number of apparently perfect
eggs, my chameleon died ; and Mrs. M. announced
the event to me as "a happy release."

Le Bruyn, in his Voyage to the Levant, declares
that the chameleons which he kept in his apart-
ment at Smyrna lived on air, adding, however,
that they died one after another in a short time.
Sonnini, who saw several of them at the entrance
of the catacombs at Alexandria, wishing to satisfy
himself to what point they could subsist without
food, employed every precaution to prevent their
having any, leaving them, however, exposed to
the open air. They Jived under these conditions
for twenty days, but soon began to dwindle.
When they were first caught they were plump,
but they soon became very thin. They gradually
lost their agility and their colors with their good
condition ; their skins became livid and wrinkled,
and adhered close to the bone ; so that, to use his
own expression, they had the appearance of being
dried before they ceased to exist. The apparent
good condition of my chameleon may have been
due to its good plight when I received it ; most
oviparous animals at the time when the eggs are
in the early process of formation, being weM fed
and rilled, as we see in the case of fish. As the
eggs are developed the system is drained, till, at
last, when they are fully formed, the fish, is nearly
worthless as food, all its goodness having gone
into the roe. In the case of insects — the silk
moth,* for example — no sustenance is taken after
the worm has woven the shroud, from whose
cerements it is to burst forth made perfect. The
imago has every sign of a well-filled system, till,
in obedience to the great law of nature, the eggs
are laid, and the parents, having finished the work
which they were appointed to perform, die with-
out having any support save that which they derive
from the sun and air. The power of abstinence,
even in those warm-blooded animals whose food is
not always ready for them, the carnivora, for
instance, is very great ; and in the reptiles gener-
ally most remarkable. The belief that the chame-
leon fed on air only was general amongst the
ancients. The mode in which it gulps the air
for respiration favored this notion.

* Pkalcena mori.

Chameleon hiat, ut tenui depascitur aura,
Reciprocumque soli per sata carpit iter.

Indicat ac varies semper mutatque colores,
Mutat hians faciem, mutat hians chlamydem.

Candidaque induitur nunquam, nee rubra supellex,
Semper hiat zephyros, semper hiat stimulos.

And long before these lines were written the
amorous Roman* had celebrated the aerial diet
and mutability of the creature.

Id quoque quod ventis animal nutritur et aura
Protinus assimilat tetigit quoscunque colores.

Red and white were supposed to be the colors
which it could never assume, as indicated in the
first lines above printed. The former color no
one has recorded as visible upon the chameleon's
skin throughout ; but the latter has been mentioned
both in prose and poetry. A vir nobilissimus fidt
dignus related to Aldrovand, that he wrapped up
one which had been presented to him in a whit*
handkerchief, and when he arrived at home pro-
ceeded to open it, in order to examine the animal,
but could see nothing but the handkerchief. At
last he detected the chameleon, which had se
completely acquired the whiteness of the wrapper
as to be invisible.

The gentlemen who nearly lost their temper im
disputing about the color of one of these reptilee
were all put in the wrong by him who

Produc'd the beast, and lo! 'twas white.

My experience supports the conclusions of
Sonnini and Milne Edwards as to the mutability
of color. When the chameleon kept by me first
came into my possession, and was comparatively
vigorous, substances of various colors were placed
near it without its ever altering its hue according-
ly, as far as I could perceive. It would roll its
eye and bring it to bear on the object, and some-
times the tints of the skin would vary, but not iu
unison with the adjacent color. When it war
clinging to the dark bronze-work of the fender,
enjoying the heat of the fire, I sometimes thought
that its hue became more sombre ; but this effect
was by no means constant. Gray, Isabella color,
and pale yellow, with the spots or granules vary-
ing into green, grayish or blackish, were the
prevailing changes ; but I never saw it white. I
have seen it of a whitey-brown color ; and such
was its prevailing hue in its latter days, and at
its death.

The French academicians seem to have come
to the conclusion that the sun was a principal
agent in such changes. They describe the color
of the eminences of their chameleon, when it was
at rest in the shade and had remained a long time
undisturbed, as of a bluish gray, except under the
feet, where it was white inclining to yellow, and
the intervals of the granules of the skin were of a
pale and yellowish red. This changed when the
animal was in the sun ; and all the parts of its
body which were illuminated altered from their
bluish color to a brownish gray inclining to
tawny. The rest of the skin, which was not
illuminated by the sun, changed from gray into
several lively shining colors, forming spots about

* Mctam. lib. xv.

112

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

half a finger's breadth, reaching from the crest of ] passions of the creature. He holds that, when a

the spine to the middle of the back ; and others
appeared on the ribs, forelegs, and tail. All the
spots were of an Isabella color, through the mix-
ture of a pale yellow, with which the granules
were tinged, and of a bright red, which was the
color of the skin that was visible between the
granules ; the rest of the skin not in the sun's
light, and which was of a paler gray than ordina-
ry, resembled a cloth made of mixed wool, some of
the granules being greenish, others of a tawny
gray, and others of the usual bluish gray, the
ground remaining as before. When the sun
ceased to shine, the original gray appeared again
by degrees, and spread itself all over the body,
except under the feet, which continued nearly of
the same color, but rather browner. When, in
this state of color, it was handled by strangers,
several blackish spots about the size of a finger-
nail appeared — a change which did not take place
when it was handled by those who usually took
care of it. Sometimes it was marked with brown
spots which inclined towards green. It was
wrapped in a linen cloth, and, after two or three
minutes, was taken out whitish, but not so white
as that which the vir nobilifsimus above alluded to
subjected to a similar experiment. Theirs, which
had only changed its ordinary gray into a paler
gray, after having retained that color some time,
lost it gradually. This experiment made them
question the truth of the allegation that the cha-
meleon takes all colors but white, as Theophras-
tus and Plutarch report ; for theirs seemed to
have such a disposition to retain this color that it
grew pale every night, and when dead it showed
more white than any other color. Nor did they
find that it changed color all over the body, as
Aristotle reports ; for, according to their experi-
ence, when the animal takes other colors than
gray, and disguises itself to appear in masquerade,
as ^Elian pleasantly observes, it covers only cer-
tain parts of the body with them. They, finally,
laid their chameleon on substances of various
colors, and wrapped it up in them ; but it did not
take those colors as it had taken the white, and,
indeed, they allow that it only took the white the
first time the experiment was made, though it was
repeated several times and on different days.

Hasselquist's experiments with regard to the
mutability of color were followed by nearly the
same consequences as mine ; but he thought that
the changes depended on a sort of disease, a kind
of jaundice, to which the animal was subject,
particularly when it was irritated.

The blood, in the opinion of M. d'Obsonville,
was the cause of the change. That fluid, accord-
ing to him, is, in the chameleon, of a violet blue,
which color, he says, it will retain on linen or
paper for some minutes, if it be previously steeped
in a solution of a^m. The coats of the blood-
vessels he found to be yellow, both in their main
trunks and ramifications, and he comes to the
conclusion that green will be the product. Like
Hasselquist, he attributes the change of color to the

lealthy chameleon is provoked, the circulation is

accelerated, the vessels spread over the skin dis-

ended, and so a superficial blue-green color is

>roduced ; but when the animal is shut up, deprived

if free air and impoverished, the circulation be-

omes sluggish, the vessels are not well filled, and

he languid chameleon changes to a yellow-green,

which continues during its imprisonment.

Others, the late Sir John Barrow for instance,
have observed that, previous to a change, the
chameleon makes a long inspiration, when the
>ody is inflated so as to appear twice its usual
size, and, as the inflation subsides, the change of
color is gradually manifested, the only permanent
marks being two small dark lines along the sides ;
and it has been argued, from this description, that
he reptile owes its varied tints to the influence of
oxygen. Mr. Houston is also of opinion that the
ihange depends on the state of turgescency of the
skin ; and Mr. Spittal regards it as connected with
respiration and the state of the lungs. Theories
upon theories, as varied as the tints which they
profess to explain, have been broached to account
"or these changes ; but, without dwelling longer
upon them, let us turn to the solution of M. Milne
Edwards, who, in an elaborate paper published in
the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for January,
1834, came to the conclusion that the color of
chameleons does not depend essentially on the
greater or less inflation or expansion of their
jodies, or the changes which might thence take
>lace in the circulation or condition of the blood ;
nor on the distance between the several tubercles
or granules of the skin ; but, at the same time, he
does not deny that those circumstances may prob-
ably exercise some influence. He shows that
there exist in the skin of these reptiles two layers
of membranous pigment, one above the other, but
so disposed as to appear simultaneously under the
cutici<;, and sometimes in such a manner that the
one may be hidden by the other ; and he insists
that everything remarkable in the changes of the
chameleon's color may be explained by the ap-
pearance of the pigment of the lower layer to an
extent more or less considerable in the midst of
the pigment of the upper layer, or by its disap-
pearance beneath that layer. That these displace-
ments of the lower pigment do actually occur he
proves, and he derives from those facts the proba-
ble consequence that the chameleon's color changes,
not only during life, but that it may vary after
death. He also observes, that there is a close
analogy between the mechanism which causes the
changes of color in these lacertians and that which
governs the appearance and disappearance of col-
ored spots in the mantles of several of the cephal-
opods or cuttles.

So long ago as July, 1819, Signer Giosu£
Sangiovanni read to the Royal Academy of Sci-
ences at Naples his able and interesting paper,
intituled Descrizione di un particolare Sistema di
Organi, e de* Fenomeni cA' esso produce ; scoverto
ne1 Molluschi Cefalopodi, in which he described the

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

113

structure and properties of the colorific stratum
of the skin of the cephalopoda, upon which the
observations of M. Milne Edwards are in a great
measure based. Professor Owen quotes it in his
admirable article " Cephalopoda," in the Cyclo-
peedia of Anatomy and Physiology ; and, as this
part of the organization of those mollusks is the
key to the changes of color in the chameleon,
those who are interested in the subject may like
to see a brief account of the mechanism by which
the changes are effected in the marine animals.

The epidermis of the cephalopods generally
forms a thick, white, semi-transparent, elastic,
external layer, which is easily detached by macer-
ation. Professor Owen remarks, that the color-
ific stratum of the integument forms, both in its
structure and vital phenomena, one of the most
curious and interesting parts of the organization
of this singular class of animals, and that the
nature of this layer, when thoroughly understood,
may be expected to elucidate the mysterious opera-
tions of light in producing and affecting the colors
of animals. This stratum, which is analogous to
the rete mucosum which gives color, or " com-
plexion," as it is termed, to man, consists, he
observes, of a very lax and fine vascular and
nervous cellular tissue, containing an immense
number of small closed vesicles, which vary in
relative sizes in different species. These vesicles
are of a flattened oval or circular form, and con-
tain a fluid in which a denser coloring matter is
suspended. The color is not always identical in
all the vesicles, but, in general, corresponds more
or less closely with the tint of the secretion of the
ink-bag with which this race is furnished as a
protection ; for, as is known to all who have
observed their habits, their first act when surprised
is to eject this inky fluid, succus nigrce. loliginis,
that they may escape under cloud of the discolored
water. In the common cuttle, Sepia, besides the
vesicles which correspond to the ink in the color
of their contents, there is another series of an
ochre color. In the common pen-and-ink fish,
Loligo vulgaris, there are three sorts of colored
vesicles, yellow, rose-red, and brown. In Loligo
sagitlata there are four kinds — saffron, red, black-
ish, and bluish. The paper Nautilus, Argonauta
Argo, possesses vesicles of all colors, which have
been observed in other cephalopods, and hence the
variety and change of color which its skin presents
when exposed to the light. The rest of this in-
teresting organization will be best conveyed in the
professor's own words : —

These vesicles have no visible communication
either with the vascular or the nervous systems, or
with each other ; yet they exhibit during the life-
time of the animal, and long after death, rapid
alternating contractions and expansions. If, when
the animal is in a state of repose, and the vesicles
are contracted and invisible, the skin be slightly
touched, the colored vesicles show themselves, and
in an instant, or sometimes with a more gradual
motion, the color will be accumulated like a cloud
or a blush upon the irritated surface. If a portion
of the skin be removed from the body and immersed

in sea-water, the lively contractions of the vesicles
continue ; when viewed in this state under the
microscope by means of transmitted light, the edges
of the vesicles are seen well defined, and to pass in
their dilatations and contractions over or under
one another. If the separated portion of integu-
ment be placed in the dark, and examined after a
lapse of ten or fifteen minutes, all motion has
ceased ; but the vesicles, when reexposed to a
moderately strong light, soon, in obedience to that
stimulus, recommence their motions. As the vibra-
tile microscopic cilia have been recently traced
through the higher classes of the animal kingdom,
it is not an unreasonable conjecture that equally
inexplicable motions of the coloring parts of the
integument may also be detected in other classes
than that in which we have just described them,
and thus a clue may be obtained towards the expla-
nation of the influence of geographical position OB
the prevailing colors of the animal kingdom.

This is a most seducing and interesting subject,
well worthy of consideration and further experi-
ment ; but at present we must return to our
chameleons. Just see how admirably the adapta-
tion is carried on throughout. The free foot,
formed in some of the other lacertians for running
nimbly over the sand or through the herbage, with
the aid of the disposition of the other limb bones,
is here changed into an organ essentially prehensile.
The two wrist-bones, which are next to those of the
forearm, are articulated upon one central piece,
which receives the five bones that correspond to th«
metacarpal. Three of these are for the anterior toes,
and two for the posterior ; and the whole five finger
bones are bundled up in the integuments to the claws,
three in the fore bundle and two in the hind bundle,
forming a most efficient clinging instrument when
applied to the branch of a tree. The toes of the
hinder extremities are disposed in the same oppos-
able manner. The creature in its natural state,
planted firmly among the foliage, and holding
tenaciously on by its feet and tail, varying its
color at pleasure in the chequered light and shade,
looks more like an excrescence of the tree than an
animated being ;* and woe to the luckless insect
that, deceived by appearances, ventures within
reach of its unerring tongue ! For, though the
shortness of its neck and its enormous occiput for-
bid it to turn its head, which it can no more do
than a carp or a codfish, the sweep of its vision is
very great. Take up a chameleon's skull, and
observe how large a space is occupied by the
orbits. In these capacious receptacles ample room
is afforded for the large globe and the muscles
which are to direct it. The pupil looks like an ani-
mated gem set in shagreen, and this versatile globe
is capable of the most varied and extensive direo-
tion. This, as worthy Dr. Goddard says, " she
turneth backward or any way, without moving her

* The Tarandus of Pliny will occur to those of our
readers who are conversant with his wonderful maga-
zine, where the beast is described as being as big as
an ox, and when he pleaseth, assuming the color of an
ass. But this is a small sample of his versatility, for
"he reflects the colors of all shrubs, trees, flowers,
and of the place where he lies, and hiding himself
from fear, he is on that account very rarely taken." —
Nat. Hist. viii. 34.

114

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

head ; and ordinarily the one a contrary or quite
different way from the other."

But (as another old writer observes) what is
most extraordinary in this motion is to see one of
the eyes move whilst the other remains immovable ;
and the one to turn forward, at the same time that
the other looketh behind ; the one to look up to the
sky, when the other is fixed on the ground. And
these motions to be so extreme, that they do carry
the pupilla under the crest which makes the eye-
brow, and so far into the canthi, or corners of the
•yes, that the sight can discern whatever is done
just behind it, and directly before, without turning
the head, which is fastened to the shoulders.

The vermiform tongue of the woodpecker is
known to most who have shot one, and the same
organ is the principal agent by which the chame-
leon takes its prey. Like that of the woodpecker,
the tongue of the chameleon can be protruded to a
considerable length. In the reptile, this organ is
projected in a cylindrical and apparently erectile
state from the sheath at the lower part of the
mouth, where it remains when at rest, to the
length of half-a-foot, and returns with a fly or
other insect adhering to its glutinous tip, when
the prey is secured within the teeth, which have
no true roots, their trilobated crowns appearing
to be soldered upon the edge of the upper part of
a groove hollowed in the maxillary bone, and
looking like an enamelled and denticulated finish
to that edge.

I have frequently seen chameleons take their
food, although I never could succeed in inducing
my own to break its fast. When one of them is
about to feed, it rolls its shagreen eyeball till the
pupil is brought to bear upon the intended victim.
Motionless and patient, the reptile waits till the
insect arrives within distance. Then the exten-
sile tongue is protruded with unfailing aim pre-
cisely to the extent required, and is retracted with
the prey. I have seen them take mealworms
frequently. When two mealworms were placed
before a chameleon, one on one side and one on
the other, at different distances, the eye of each
side was levelled at the adjacent insect; and
though the eyes were necessarily looking in dif-
ferent directions, the tongue did its duty upon both
one after the other, when they came within reach
The motion of extension and retraction was no
very rapid, but it must be remembered that those
seen by me were in confinement in this country.

So extraordinary a shape was not likely to be
passed over by the ancients without attributes as
odd as the animal itself ; and Democritus seems to
have revelled in the marvellous qualities possessec
by its several parts. Thus, we are told that thii
remarkable tongue, '; pulled out of the head whiles
the chamaeleon is quicke, promiseth good successe
in judicial! trials" — in compliment, doubtless, tc
the lawyers, who

Can with ease
Change words and meanings as they please,

but are as unerring as the chameleon's organ ir
securing the substantial part of the litigation.

There is not a creature in the world thought
more fearefull than it ; which is the reason of that
mutability whereby it turneth into such varietie of
olors ; howbeit of exceeding great power against
ill the sortes of hawkes or birds of prey ; for, by
eport, let them fly and soar never so high over the
hamaeleon, there is an attractive vertue that will
etch them downe, so as they shall fall upon the
hamaeleon, and yeeld themselves willingly as a
srey to be torne, mangled, and devoured by other
beasts.

Pliny, who quotes the Greek, goes on to in-
brm us that the same Democritus

Telleth us a tale, that if one burne the head and
hroat of the chamaeleon in a fire made of oken
wood, there will immediately arise tempests of
rainy stormes and thunder together ; and the liver
will do as much (saith he) if it burne upon the tiles
of an house. As for all the other vertues which
he said author ascribe th to the chamaeleon, be-
:ause they smell of witchcraft, and I hold them
meere lies, I will overpasse them all, unlesse they
>e some few for which he deserveth well to be
aughed at, and would indeed be reproved by no
other means better.

And yet the critic, in his eighth book, gravely
nforms us, that " the raven, when he hath killed
the chamseleon, and yet perceiving that he is hurt
and poisoned by him, flieth for remedy to the
iaurell, and with it represseth and extinguishetn
the venom that he is infected withal 1." Others
relate that if a crow tasted the flesh of the reptile
tie was a gone crow.

Nevertheless, it is recorded that the inhabitants
of Cochin China find them good meat — by a pro-
cess of cookery, however, somewhat similar to
that directed by Mizald, when he instructs his
scholars " how to roast and eat a goose alive,"
and, after dwelling upon every particular of the
diabolical process, winds up by declaring that " it
is mighty pleasant to behold!" The hapless
chameleons were brought, we are told, to the
Cochin Chinese market tied together in a string.
The purchasers took them home, made a fine clear
fire, unbound their chameleons, and then put them
into the burning fiery furnace, where they at first
endeavored to walk on the glowing coals, but
overcome with agony fell down, were well broiled,
taken out, their skins pulled off, and their caro
candidissima minced fine, stewed in butter, and
served up ; idque epularum genus apud ipsos in
lautissimis amis commendatur. Ude was but a
plagiarist in the matter of eels, after all.

It may be worth knowing in these days of
semi-Thuggism, which throw those of the Mo-
hocks into the shade, that " the right forefoot of
a chamaeleon hanged fast to the left arm within the
skin of a hyaena, is singular against the perils
and dangers by thieves and robbers ; as also to
skar away hobgoblins and night spirits. In like
manner, whosoever carry about them the right pap
of this beast, may bee assured against al fright and
feare." Talk of fernseed for invisibility— Democ-
ritus will tell you that " the left foote they use to
torrifie in an oven with the herb called also cha-

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

115

maeleon, and with some convenient ointment or
liquor to make in certain trosches, whereof if a
man do carry any in a box of wood about him he
shall go invisible."

In case of invasion, it is satisfactory to know
that " whosoever hath about him the right shoulder
of the chamaeleon, shall bee able to overthrow his
adversarie at the barre, and to vanquish his enemie
in the field ;" and we recommend this hint to Sir
Francis Head for his second edition ; but remem-
ber that, first, " hee must be sure to cast away
and make riddance of the strings and sinews be-
longing thereto, and to tread them under foot."

In the ancient pharmacopeia, the chameleon
was a perfect repertory of remedies. " Take the
ashes," quoth Democritus, " of the left thigh or
foot, chuse you whether, incorporate the same
with the milke of a sow, and therewith annoint
the feet, it wil be an occasion speedily to bring
the gout upon them." Doctors differed then, as
they do now, for the learned Trallianus prepared
from it a most certain medicine for driving the
gout away. But however this may be, " of the
chamaeleon's gall, for the most part, folk are in
manner verily persuaded, that it will rid the pin and
web, the cataract also of the eies, with three daies
anointing ; chase away serpents if it be dropped
into the fire ; gather all wezils in a country to-
gether, only by throwing it into the water ; and
fetch offhaire if the body be anointed therewith."
The catalogue might be extended voluminously ;
but these few prescriptions will suffice for those
who are not anxious to penetrate into the depths of
the sanitary and other mysteries of Democritus and
Co.

That zoologists should have considered this form
as isolated, aberrant as it appears to be from the
general lacertian structure, cannot be matter of
surprise. It seems to stand alone ; but if we
closely examine its organization, we shall find
that the apparent isolation is merely a modification
of different parts adapted to the wants of the ani-
mal, and that the sessile chamaeleon is as much a
lizard as the nimble Lacerta agilis that vanishes
from the sunbeam wherein it is basking before the
dazzled eye of the intruder has well made out its
colors. The form of the extremities throughout
the tribe is exactly fitted to the condition to which
it has pleased the Great Disposer to call them, and
these conditions we find gradually altered, now
dwindling,* now the front pair vanishing,! then
the posterior pair obliterated with the front pair
tolerably developed,^ till, at last, the whole of the
extremities disappear ; and, in the innocent but
much-persecuted blind-worm,^ we have a lizard in
an entirely serpentine form.

* Chamaesaura. t Bipes. t Chirotes.

§ Anguis fragilis. I have frequently seen this in-
nocuous animal put to death as the most poisonous of
serpents. The answer to my remonstrances has been
that I "knew nothing about it; an adder was bad
enough, but this was an asker, with more poison in
him than all the rest put together. No one that he
bites ever recovers." This last assertion was not far
from the truth ; for the harmless creature never bites
except what it eats — insects and worms.

Nature is inexhaustible. The wizard conquered
the indefatigable demon who "split Eildon Hills
in three" in one night, by tasking him to make
ropes of sea-sand. According to the usual
natural instruments of progression, the task of
endowing a creature with rapid motion on the
ground without external feet or wings seems
hardly less hopeless. Those who have seen a
snake rapidly vanish among the herbage, or climb
the side of a dry ditch, and escape among the
thorns of the hedge, will allow that the task has
been most efficiently performed.

And how ?

There is a great deal of geometrical neatness and
nicety in the sinuous motion of snakes and other
serpents, (says good Mr. Derham, canon of Wind-
sor, and rector of Upminster, in Essex ;) for the
assisting in which action, the annular scales under
their body are very remarkable, lying cross the
belly, contrary to what those in the back and the
rest of the body do ; also, as the edges of the fore-
most scales lie over the edges of their following
scales ; so as that when each scale is drawn back,
or set a little upright by its muscle, the outer edge
thereof, (or foot, it may be called,) is raised also a
little from the body, to lay hold on the earth, and
so promote and facilitate the serpent's motion.
This is what may be easily seen in the slough of the
belly of the serpent kind. But there is another
admirable piece of mechanism, that my antipathy
to those animals hath prevented my prying into ;
and that is, that every scale hath a distinct muscle,
one end of which is tacked to the middle of its
scale ; the other, to the upper edge of its following
scale. This, Dr. Tyson found in the rattle-snake,
and I doubt not is in the whole tribe.

Certainly ; and Tyson and others, who either
had not the Rev. W. Derham's antipathy or con-
quered it, did not stop at externals, but went a
little deeper into the matter.

Blasius remarks that the knots of the vertebr«
of the viper are shorter towards the head, and
hence that reptile can easily bend itself both back-
wards and sideways. Tyson observes, in his
Anatomy of the Rattlesnake, when treating of the
vertebrae and the other curious articulations, that
the round ball in the lower part of the upper ver-
tebra? enters a socket of the upper part of the
lower vertebrae, " like as the head of the osfemo-
ris doth the acetabulurn of the 05 ischii ; by which
contrivance, as also the articulation with one an-
other, they have that free mouon of winding their
bodies any way."

In the skeleton of the largest python in th«
museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of
England, which measures sixteen feet six inches
in length, there are three hundred and forty-eight
vertebrae. Of these two hundred and seventy-nine
support free or movable ribs, the rest are caudal ver-
tebrae. When the serpent begins to advance, the ribs
of the opposite sides are drawn apart from each other,
and the small cartilages at the end of them are bent
upon the upper surfaces of the abdominal scuta, on
which the ends of the ribs rest. The ribs move in
pairs, and the scute under each pair is necessarily
carried along with it. The scute lays hold of the

116

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

ground by its posterior edge, and becomes a fixed
point for renewed progression. Sir Everard
Home, who gives this description of the serpent's
motion, remarks that it is beautifully seen in
climbing over an angle to get upon a flat surface ;
and so it is. Nor will the observer find many
species, not even excepting the pythons and boas,
in which it is very well seen, where this subcu-
ticular multipedous mode of going through the
world is more visibly manifested than in the puff
adders.* But Sir Everard justly says, that the
large abdominal scuta of the boa may be considered
as hoofs or shoes, best fitted for this kind of pro-
gressive motion.

Sir Everard further shows that there are five
sets of muscles which bring the ribs forward.
One set goes from the transverse process of each
vertebra to the rib immediately behind it, which
rib is attached to the next vertebra. The next
set starts from the rib a little way from the spine,
just where the former terminates, passes over two
ribs, sending a slip to each, and is inserted into
the third ; a slip also connects it with the next
succeeding muscle. Under this comes the third
set arising from the posterior side of each rib, and
passes over two ribs, sending a lateral slip to the
next muscle, being inserted into the . third rib
behind it. The fourth set passes from one rib
over the next. The fifth set goes from rib to rib.

Within, the apparatus is not less beautifully
adjusted. On the inside of the chest a strong set
of muscles is attached to the anterior surface of
each vertebra, and passes obliquely forwards over
four ribs, to be inserted nearly in the middle of
the fifth. Then comes from each rib a strong flat
muscle advancing on each side before the viscera,
to form the abdominal muscles, and unites in a
middle tendon. Thus, the lower half of each rib,
which is beyond the origin of this muscle, and
only laterally connected to it by loose cellular
membrane, is external to the belly of the animal,
and is employed for the purpose of progression ;
while the half of each rib next the spine, as far as
the lungs extend, is made ancillary to respiration.
At the termination of each rib is a small cartilage,
corresponding in shape to the rib, and tapering to
the point. The cartilages of the opposite ribs
are not connected, so that when the ribs are drawn
outwards by the muscles, they are separated, and
rest their whole length on the inner surface of the
abdominal scutes, to which they are connected by
a set of short muscles, and they have also a con-
nexion with the cartilages of the neighboring ribs
by means of a set of short straight muscles.

Endo\ ?d with this apparatus, the serpent,
when moving, is altered in shape, from a circular
or oval form to one approaching a triangular figure,
the surface on the ground forming the base.

But before Sir Everard entered into this inquiry,
Sir Joseph Banks, with that instinctive acuteness
which belonged to him, had remarked, as he
watched a snake moving briskly along the carpet,
thai na itiought he saw the ribs come forward, in

* Clotho arietans.

succession, like the feet of a caterpillar. Thin
remark led Sir Everard to examine the reptile's
motion with more attention. He put his hand
under the serpent's belly, and while the snake
was in the act of passing over his palm, he dis-
tinctly felt the ends of the ribs pressing upon it,
in regular succession, so as to leave no doubt on
his mind that the ribs, forming so many pairs of
levers, were the instruments by which the animal
moved its body from place to place.

Those who have crippled a common snake or a
viper with a blow of a stick have seen how easily
this beautiful machinery may be mutilated and
rendered useless. When his nurse, by way of
preventing her charge from straying into a copse,
told him that snakes were there, the young Lion
of the North said, " Then give me a switch, that I
may go in and kill them all." The larger and con-
stricting serpents are protected by the great mass
of muscle from dislocation or injury of the spine
by such a sudden stroke, but even they are com-
pelled to relax their folds by a superior force.

As Mr. Gordon Gumming was examining the
spoor of the game by a South African fountain, he
suddenly detected an enormous old rock-snake
stealing in beneath a mass of rock beside him, not
quite so large, perhaps, as that exhibited in the
time of Augustus at Rome, and which Suetonius
tells us was fifty cubits in length ; but still a ser-
pent of very formidable dimensions.

He was (says the hunter) truly an enormous
snake ; and having never before dealt with this
species of game, I did not exactly know how to set
about capturing him. Being very anxious to pre-
serve the skin entire, and not wishing to have re-
course to my rifle, I cut a stout and tough stick,
about eight feet long, and having lightened myself
of my shooting-belt, I commenced the attack. Seiz-
ing him by the tail, I tried to get him out of his
place of refuge ; but I hauled in vain. He only
drew his large folds firmer together ; I could not
move him. At length I got a rheim round one of
his folds, about the middle of his body, and Klein-
boy and I commenced hauling away in good earnest.
The snake, finding the ground too hot for him, re-
laxed his coils, and suddenly bringing round his
head to the front he sprang out at us like an arrow,
with his immense and hideous mouth opened to its
largest dimensions, and, before I could get out of
his way, he was clean out of his hole, and made a
second spring, throwing himself forward about eight
or ten feet, and snapping his horrid fangs within a
foot of my naked legs.

Very fortunate for Mr. Gumming it was that
the serpent did not succeed in fastening on him ;
if it had done so, he would most undoubtedly have
been encircled in its deadly embrace. Once with-
in the constricting folds, Kleinboy would hardly
have succeeded in extricating him alive, and we
might never have seen one of the most stirring
books published of late years. Our Nimrod,
however, sprang out of his way, and getting hold
of the green oough he had cut, he returned to the
charge : —

The snake now glided along at top speed ; he
knew the ground well, and was making for a mass

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

117

of broken rocks, where he would have been beyond
my reach, but before he could gain this place of
refuge I caught him two or three tremendous whacks
on the head. He, however, held on, and gained a
pool of muddy water, which he was rapidly crossing,
when I again belabored him, and at length reduced
.his pace to a stand. We then hanged him by the
neck to a bough of a tree, and in about fifteen
minutes he seemed dead, but he again became very
troublesome during the operation of skinning, twist-
ing his body in all manner of ways. This serpent
measured fourteen feet.

There is no amount of torture that man — aye,
and woman too, will not inflict on an animal that
does not cry out. If the eels, which the fish-wife
or the cook skins with so much unconcern, could
express their agonies audibly, nothing would in-
duce either of those delicate females to continue
the horrible and merciless operation ; but the eels
are mute, and suffer accordingly.

Two works of art, ancient and modern, rise
before us ; one in all the simplicity and purity of
marble ; the other glowing with all the enchant-
ment of color. In the one, the agonized priest of
Apollo and his hapless children vainly struggle in
the folds of the serpents : —

Laocoonta petunt : et primum parva duorum
Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
Implicat, et miseros morsu depascitur artus.
Post ipsum auxilio subeuntem ac tela fereutem
Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus ; et jam
Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
Terga dati superant capite et cervicibus altis.
Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos,
Perfuses sanie vittas atroque veneno ;
Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit.

In -that marvellous group,

All made out of the carver's brain,

the serpents are so represented, that the spectator
feels that there is no hope for the victims. The
very opposite, of it appears in the subject made
musical by the exquisite Doric reed of Theocritus,
and brought in all its grandeur before the eye by
the bold and beautiful pencil of our own Reynolds.

In the idyll of the Greek,* opening with one of
the most charming material scenes and good nights
ever presented to the imagination , the serpents are
made to relax their folds when the spines of their
backs waxed weary under the killing grasp of the
Infant Hercules ; and in the British picture you
see at once that they are dying, overcome by the
vigor of the son of Jupiter.

But as long as the locomotive machinery is in
good order, the sinuous, graceful windings of the
serpent, joined to the bright hues with which the
skin of the majority of the species is enamelled,
make it a pleasing object to those who can over-
come the natural antipathy felt by so many at their
presence, and incline them to sympathize with the
Indian girl —

Stay, stay, thou lovely, fearful snake,
Nor hide thee in yon darksome brake ;
But let me oft thy form review,

torra. — x, 1,

Thy sparkling eyes and golden hue ;
From thence a chaplet shall be wove
To grace the youth I dearest love.

Then, ages hence, when thou no more
Shalt glide along the sunny shore,
Thy copied beauties shall be seen ;
Thy vermeil red and living green
In mimic folds thou shall display ;
Stay, lovely, fearful adder stay !

To be sure, poets, as well as doctors, differ ;
and Coleridge, in " that singularly wild and beau-
tiful poem," tells us that

A snake's small eye blinks dull and sly.
And dull it is sometimes, but only before moulting,
for the skin of the cornea comes off with the rest
of the slough. When the serpent comes out in
its new coat, with its bright eye and elegant action,
it is as different from its former self as Talley-
rand in solitary dishabille was from Talleyrand
dressed in a brilliant assembly, through whose
crowded mazes he would wind his way, his very
lameness lending grace to his gently undulating
progress.

Those who define a serpent as an apod, or foot-
less animal, carry their definition too far. The
large constricting serpents, and not only those,
hut eryx and tortrix, are furnished with the rudi-
ments of hinder extremities, which appear to have
escaped the notice of Sir Everard Home, but did
not escape that of Dr. Mayer. Observing the
spur, or nail, on each side of the vent in the
bo'idce, the doctor examined further, and found it
to be a true nail, in the cavity of which is a little
semi-cartilaginous bone, ungual phalanx, articu-
lated with another much better developed bone,
which is concealed under the skin. This second
bone of the rudimentary foot presented an external
thick condyle, with which the ungual phalanx was
articulated, and was furnished besides with a
smaller internal apophysis. Proceeding in his
investigation, he laid bare a rudimentary tibia
with its muscles, and made out a complete pos-
terior limb, such as it was, the foot being furnished
with its abductor and adductor muscles. Upon
these elements he founded his Phcenopoda, a family
of Ophidians, having the rudiments of a foot visible
externally, containing the genera boa, python, eryx,
and tortrix.

The author of the article " Boa," in the Penny
Cydopcedia, where the details of this curious dis-
covery are given, observes, that no one can read
of the habits of these reptiles in a state of nature
without perceiving the advantage which they gain,
when, holding on by their tails on a tree, their
heads and bodies in ambush, and half-floating on
some sedgy river, they surprise the thirsty animal
that seeks the stream. These hooks help the
serpent to maintain a fixed point ; they become a
fulcrum, which .gives a double power to his
energies.

We need not go to the Valley of Diamonds
with Sinbad to find enormous serpents. The
companions of other sailors have bee,n swallowed
up by those monstrous reptiles, as was too clearly
proved to the crew of the Malay proa, who an-

118

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

chored for the night close to the island of Celebes.
One of the party went on shore to look for betel-
nut, and, on returning from his search, stretched
his wearied limbs to rest on the beach, where he
fell asleep, as his companions believed. They
were roused in the middle of the night by his
screams, and hurried on shore to his assistance.
But they came too late. A monstrous snake had
crushed him to death. All they could do was to
wreak their vengeance on his destroyer, whose
head they cut off, and bore it with the body of
their shipmate to their vessel. The marks of the
teeth of the serpent, which was about thirty feet
in length, were impressed on the dead man's right
wrist, and the disfigured corpse showed that it had
been crushed by constriction round the head, neck,
breast, and thigh. When the snake's jaws were
extended, they admitted a body the size of a man's
head.

By great Apollo's arm the python slain,

O'er many a rood lay stretch'd upon the plain.

Latona's son did his work with the graceful
ease of a divinity — oh, that the work of Leontius*
had been spared to us ! — but the mortals who
were opposed by the enormous python near Utica
had a very different task to perform : —

Well knowne it is that Attilius Regulus, generall
under the Romans during the wars against the
Carthaginians, assailed a serpent near the river
Bagrada,f which carried in length 120 foot ; and
before he could conquer him was driven to discharge
upon him arrows, quarrels, stones, bullets, and such-
like shot, out of brakes, slings, and other engines
of artillery, as if he had given assault to some strong
warlike towne ; the proofe whereof was to be seen
by the marks remaining in his skin and chawes,
which, until the war of Numantia, remained in a
temple or conspicuous place of Rome.

But, though vanquished, the monster had his
revenge ; for his huge carrion and corrupt gore so
polluted the air and waters that his conquerors
were obliged to move their camp, not, however,
without taking his skin with them as spolia opima.
General Peter Both made a better thing of it with
a great Indian python, for he and his friends
feasted on a magnificent wild boar, which the
enemy had pouched just before its defeat and
death-!

The African or Asiatic pythons may have been
in the eye of the sculptor of the Laocoon, but the
models may have existed nearer home, " for that

* This "famous imageur," as Philemon Holland
calls him, who "expressed lively in brasse," executed,
among other bronzes, "one Apollo playing upon his
harpe ; as also another Apollo, and the serpent killed
with his arrowes, which image he surnamed Dicaeus,
i. e.t just ; for that when the city of Thebes was won
by Alexander the Great, the gold which he hid in the
bosome thereof when hee fled, was found there safe
and not diminished, when the enemy was gone and he
returned."

t Some write " Bagradas " and "Magradas" (Me-
jerda).

t Bontius. Regulus was not the only great captain
who had to encounter other than human enemies. It
was, no doubt, very smart to say,

Philip fought men, but Alexander women,

we see in Italy other serpents named boae, so big
and huge, that in the daies of the Emperor Clau-
dius, there was one of them killed in the Vaticane,
within the belly whereof there was found an infant
all whole."* Europe is separate from Africa by
no very wide gulf —

It is a narrow strait,

You can see the blue hills over ;

and the character of some of the vegetation of the
south reminds the observer of that of Africa.

But to see the true boae in their native forests
we must cross the Atlantic ; and those who are
not familiar with the story may have no objection
to learn how Captain Stedman fared in an
encounter with one twenty-two feet and some
inches in length, during his residence in Surinam.

whatever injustice there may have been in a sarcasm
so dearly paid for; but, without standing up for the
bravery of the men he conquered on their own soil —
men who fought valiantly pro aris et focis, Philip's
son, according to Vincentius, was sorely beset by
monsters as well as men. To say nothing of the
"Hippodami," which rushed upon and devoured his
troops as they were passing the Indian river, when,
in indignation at those who had led his Macedonians
into such peril without proper precautions, he ordered
a hundred and fifty of his generals to be thrown into
the stream, where the hippodami aforesaid did execu-
tion upon them — -justa peena afecerunt — to say nothing
of that episode, his soldiers had other horrors to con-
front. His camp was pitched near a lake, and the
weary Greeks were reposing after the heavy fatigues
of the day, when, at the rising of the moon, down came
an army of scorpions for their accustomed night-
draught. They were followed by a host of cerastes
and other serpents, of all sizes and colors, some red.
some black, some white, and others glittering like
gold. ' The whole country resounded with their hiss-
ings. The affrighted soldiers threw themselves in-
stinctively into the serried phalanx, and with their
spears and shields crushed and pierced the invaders,
and the light troops plied them with fire. After a
fight of about two hours, some of the reptiles were
killed, some got their drink, and the survivors, to the
joy of the troops, departed to their hiding-places.
Then, up to the third hour of the night, the garrison
had a little rest, when down came immense serpents,
as long and as big as columns, with two or three
heads apiece. With these the Macedonians fought
for more than an hour — not by Shrewsbury clock — and
routed them, but not without the loss of thirty slaves
and twenty soldiers. After the departure of the ser-
pents appeared enormous crabs, with shells like
crocodiles. Many of these were burnt, but many
fought their way into the lake. The harassed troops
now began to hope that their troubles were, for the
present, ended, when down came white lions as big as
bulls, great boars, lynxes, tigers, and horrible pan-
thers ; and as soon as they were driven off, an army of
bats as big as pigeons was about their ears. But,
above all, there came a beast bigger than an elephant,
black, with a head like a horse, and its forehead armed
with three horns, called by the Indians "odonta."
This- odonta, having drunk at the lake, espied the
camp, and immediately charged it, notwithstanding
the fires. In this last encounter six-and-thirty soldiers
were slain; and fifty-three falchions rendered useless.
At length the monster died, transfixed by spears.
While the men were thus employed, the quadrupeds
were attacked and killed by an army of Indian rats.
Those who would see what the hippodami were like,
as well as the scorpions, serpents, crabs, (which, by
the way, have the form of lobsters or crayfish,) white
lions, panthers, bats, and, above all, the odonta that
figured in this night attack, let them turn to the de-
lectable woodcuts in the Prodigiorum ac Ostcntorum
Chronicon— Basileae, 1557.
* Holland's Pliny.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

119

Captain Stedman was lying in his hammock, as
his vessel floated down the river, when the senti-
nel told him that he had seen and challenged
something black moving in the brushwood on the
beach, which gave no answer. Up rose the cap-
tain, manned the canoe that accompanied his ves-
sel, and rowed to the shore to ascertain what
it was. One of his slaves cried out that it was
no negro but a great snake, that the captain might
shoot if he pleased. The captain, having no such
inclination, ordered all hands to return on hoard.
The slave, David, who had first challenged the
snake, then begged leave to step forward and
shoot it. This seems to have roused the captain,
for he determined to kill it himself, and loaded
with hall cartridge.

The master and slave then proceeded. David
cut a path with a bill-hook, and behind came a ma-
rine with three more loaded guns. They had not
gone above twenty yards through mud and water,
the negro looking every way with uncommon
vivacity, when he suddenly called out, " Me see
snakee !" and, sure enough, there the reptile lay,
coiled up under the fallen leaves and rubbish of
the trees. So well covered was it that some time
elapsed before the captain could perceive its head,
not above sixteen feet from him, moving its forked
tongue, while its vividly bright eyes appeared to
emit sparks of fire. The captain now rested his
piece upon a branch, to secure a surer aim, and
fired. The ball missed the head, but went
through the body, when the snake struck round
with such astonishing force as to cut away all the
underwood around it with the facility of a scythe
mowing grass, and, flouncing with its tail, made
the mud and dirt fly over their heads to a con-
siderable distance. This commotion seems to
have sent the party to the right about ; for they
took to their heels and crowded into the canoe.
David, however, entreated the captain to renew
the charge, assuring him that the snake would be
quiet in a few minutes, and that it was neither
able nor inclined to pursue them, supporting his
opinion by walking before the captain till the lat-
ter should be ready to fire.

They now found the snake a little removed
from its former station, very quiet, with its
head, as before, lying out among the fallen leaves,
rotten bark, and old moss. Stedman fired at it
immediately, but with no better success than at
first ; and the enraged animal, being hut slightly
wounded by the second shot, sent up such a cloud
of dust and dirt as the captain had never seen, ex-
cept in a whirlwind ; and away they all again
retreated to their canoe. Tired of the exploit,
Stedman gave orders to row towards the barge ;
but the persevering David still entreating that he
might be permitted to kill the reptile, the captain
determined to make a third and last attempt in his
company ; and they this time directed their fire
with such effect that the snake was shot by one of
them through the head.

The vanquished monster was then secured by a
running noose passed over its head, not without

some difficulty, however ; for, though it was mor-
tally wounded, it continued to writhe and twist
about so as to render a near approach dangerous.
The serpent was dragged to the shore, and made
fast to the canoe, in order that it might be towed
to the vessel, and continued swimming like an eel
till the party arrived on board, where it was
finally determined that the snake should be again
taken on shore, and there skinned for the sake of
its oil. This was accordingly done ; and David,
having climbed a tree with the end of a rope in
his hand, let it down over a strong forked bough,
the other negroes hoisted away, and the serpent
was suspended from the tree. Then David, quit-
ting the tree, with a sharp knife between his
teeth, clung fast upon the suspended snake, still
twisting and twining, and proceeded to perform
the same operation that Marsyas underwent, only
that David commenced his work by ripping the
subject up ; he then stripped down the skin as he
descended. Stedman acknowledges, that though
he perceived that the snake was no longer able to
do the operator any harm, he could not without
emotion see a naked man, black and bloody, cling-
ing with arms and legs round the slimy and yet
living monster. The skin and above four gallons
of clarified fat, or rather oil, were the spoils
secured on this occasion ; full as many gallons
more seem to have been wasted. The negroes
cut the flesh into pieces, intending to feast on it ;
but the captain would not permit them to eat what
he regarded as disgusting food, though they
declared that it was exceedingly good and whole-
some. The negroes were right and the captain
was wrong ; the flesh of most serpents is very
good and nourishing, to say nothing of the restora-
tive qualities attributed to it, and noticed in a
former paper.

One of the most curious accounts of the benefit
derived by man from the serpent race, is related
by Kircher (see Mus. Worm.), where it is stated
that near the village of Sassa, about eight miles
from the city of Bracciano, in Italy, there is a
hole or cavern, called la Grotta delli Serpi, which
is large enough to contain two men, and is all
perforated with small holes like a sieve. From
these holes, in the beginning of spring, issue a
prodigious number of small, different colored ser-
pents, of which every year produces a new brood,
but which seem to have no poisonous quality.
Such persons as are afflicted with scurvy, leprosy,
palsy, gout, and other ills to which flesh is heir,
were laid down naked in the cavern, and, their
bodies being subjected to a copious sweat from the
heat of the subterraneous vapors, the young ser-
pents were said to fasten themselves on every part,
and extract, by sucking, every diseased or vitiated
humor ; so that, after some repetitions of this
treatment, the patients were restored to perfect
health. Kircher, who visited this cave, found it
warm, and answering in every way the description
he had of it. He saw the holes, heard a mur-
muring, hissing noise in them, and though he owns
that he missed seeing the serpents, it not being

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

the season of their creeping out, yet he saw great
numbers of their exuviae or sloughs, and an elm
growing hard by laden with them. The discovery
of this air Schlangenbad was said to have been
made by a leper going from Rome to some baths
near this place, who, fortunately, losing his way,
and being benighted, turned into this cave. Find-
ing it very warm, and being very weary, he pulled
off his clothes and fell into such a deep sleep that
he did not feel the serpents about him till they had
wrought his cure.

Such instances of good-will towards man, com-
bined with the periodical renovation of youthful
appearance, by a change of the whole external
skin, and the character of the serpent for wisdom,
contributed, doubtless, to raise the form to a place
among the deities.

Wee may not forget that Genii were sometimes
paynted by the Paynims in the forme and shape of
man, having a home, betokening plentie orabound-
ance in their hand ; as is yet to be seen in many
olde and auncient stampes or coynes ; and some-
times in the forme of serpents ; which may well
serve to understand that verse of Persius —

Pinge duos angues, pueri, sacer est locus, &c.

And this did not Servius forget, speaking of that
serpent which ^Eneas (in his anniversaries or
yearly sacrifices, celebrated to the name of his
father Anchises) did see to creepe upon his tombe ;
touching the which (as Virgill saith) ^Eneas was
uncertaine whether it were the Genius of his
father or of the place. And this may also helpe to
the interpretation of another place in Theocritus,
in his booke of Characters, (which I have also cor-
rected from the vulgar and common reading,)
where he saith, that a superstitious person, seeing
by chaunce a serpent in his house, did consecrate
unto it a little chappell in the same place. But
my meaning is not here to speake of serpents,
which (as Plutarch saith) were consecrated unto
noble and heroicall persons, and which, after their
deaths, did appeare neere to their corpses ; for this
is not any part of our matter ; albeit a man may
very well fit, unto the Genii, that same which he
hath delivered touching this point.*

Fond of milk and wine, these genii, like the
lubricus anguis of Virgil's fifth book, tasted the
libations and were regarded as sacred.

Their aptitude for lameness was another quality
which aided their elevation. The little girl men-
tioned by Maria Edgeworth, of blessed memory,
took out her little porringer daily to share her
breakfast with a friendly snake that came from its
hiding-place to her call ; and when the guest
intruded beyond the due limits, she would give it
a tap on the head with her spoon, and the admoni-
tion, " Eat on your own side, I say."

A lad whom I knew kept a common snake in
London, which he had rendered so tame that it
was quite at ease with him and very fond of its
master. When taken out of its box, it would

* A Treatise of Specters or Straunge Sights, Visions,
and Apparitions appearing sensibly unto Men. At
London. Printed by Val. S. for Matthew Lownes.
1COS.

creep up his sleeve, come out at the top, wind
itself caressingly about his neck and face, and
when tired retire to sleep in his bosom.

Carver, in his travels, relates an instance of
docility, which, if true, surpasses any story of the
kind I ever heard.

An Indian belonging to the Menomonie, having
taken a rattlesnake, found means to tame it ; and
when he had done this treated it as a deity, calling
it his great father, and carrying it with him in a
box wherever he went. This he had done for
several summers, when Mons. Pinnisance acci-
dentally met with him at this carrying place, just
as he was setting off for a winter's hunt. The
French gentleman was surprised one day to see the
Indian place the box which contained his god on
the ground, and opening the door give him his
liberty ; telling him, whilst he did it, to be sure
and return by the time he himself should come
back, which was to be in the month of May follow-
ing. As this was but October, monsieur told the
Indian, whose simplicity astonished him, that he
fancied he might wait long enough, when May
arrived, for the arrival of his great father. The
Indian was so confident of his creature's obedience,
that he offered to lay the Frenchman a wager of
two gallons of rum, that at the time appointed he
would come and crawl into his box. This was
agreed on, and the second week in May following
fixed for the determination of the wager. At that
period they both met there again, when the Indian
set down his box and called for his great father.
The snake heard him not ; and the time being now
expired, he acknowledged that he had lost. How-
ever, without seeming to be discouraged, he offered
to double the bet if his father came not within two
days more. This was further agreed on ; when,
behold, on the second day, about one o'clock, the
snake arrived, and of his own accord crawled into
the box, which was placed ready for him. The
French gentleman vouched for the truth of this
story, and, from the accounts I have often received
of the docility of those creatures, I see no reason to
doubt its veracity.

Southey has taken advantage of this docility,
when he brings before us the diabolical arch-
priest, and his monstrous god ,

The general grave

Was delved within a deep and shady dell,
Fronting a cavern in the rock, ... the scene
Of many a bloody rite, ere Madoc came. . .
A temple as they deemed by Nature made,
Where the snake-idol stood.

Suddenly Neolin

Sprung up aloft, and shrieked, as one who treads
Upon a viper in his heedless path,
The God ! the very God ! he cried, and howled
One long, shrill, piercing modulated cry,
Whereat from that dark temple issued forth
A serpent huge and hideous. On he came
Straight to the sound, and curled around the priest
His mighty folds innocuous, overtopping
His human height, and arching down his head,
Sought in the hands of Neolin for food ;
Then questing, reared and stretched and waved his

neck,

And glanced his forky tongue. Who then had seen
The man, with what triumphant fearlessness,
Arms, thighs, and neck, and body wreathed and

ringed

In those tremendous folds, he stood secure,
Played with the reptile's jaws, and called for food,
Food for the present God ! . . who then had seen

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121

The fiendish joy, which fired his countenance,
Might well have weened that he had summoned up
The dreadful monster from its native hell
By devilish power, himself a fiend infleshed.

Making every allowance for the exaggerations
of the Spaniards, idolatry in general and snake-
\ worship in particular must have been manifested
in the country of Neolin in all its hideousness.

Bernal Diaz* declares that

The head of a sacrificed person was strung up ;
the limbs eaten at the feast ; the body given to the
wild beasts which were kept within the temple cir-
cuits ; moreover, in that accursed house they kept
vipers and venomous snakes who had something at
their tails which sounded like morris-bells, and
they are the worst of all vipers ; these were kept
in cradles, and barrels, and earthen vessels, upon
feathers, and there they laid their eggs, and
nursed up their snakelings, and they were fed with
the bodies of the sacrificed, and with dog's flesh.
We learnt for certain, that, after they had driven
us from Mexico, and slain above 850 of our soldiers
and of the men of Narvaez, these beasts and snakes,
who had been offered to their cruel idol to be in
his company, were supported upon their flesh for
many days. When these lions and tygers roared,
and the jackals and foxes howled, and the snakes
hissed, it was a grim thing to hear them, and it
seemed like hell.

" Mexico," says Mr. Bullock, "still possesses
many objects of study for the antiquarian ;" and
he goes on to tell us that sculptured idols are to be
found in various parts of the city. The corner-
stone of the building occupied by the lottery-office
when he was there, and fronting the market for
shoes, was the head of the serpent-idol, of great
magnitude ; in his judgment it was not less than
seventy feet in length when entire. Under the
gateway of the house, nearly opposite the entrance
to the mint, was a fine statue of a deity, having the
human form in a recumbent posture, about the
size of life. This was found in digging a well.
The house at the corner of a street, at the south-
east side of the great square, was built upon, and
in part supported by, a fine circular altar of black
basalt, ornamented with the tail and claws of a
gigantic reptile. In the cloisters behind the
Dominican convent was a noble specimen of the
great serpent-idol, almost perfect and of fine work-
manship, represented in the act of swallowing a
human victim, which is crushed and struggling in
its horrid jaws.

The sacrificial stone, or altar, is buried in the
square of the cathedral, within a hundred yards of
the calendar stone. f The upper surface only is
exposed to view, which seems to have been done
designedly, to impress upon the populace an
abhorrence of the horrible and sanguinary rites
that had once been performed on this very altar.
It is said by writers that 30,000 human victims
were sacrificed at the coronation of Montezuma.
Kirwan, in the preface to his metaphysics, states
the annual number of human victims immolated in
Mexico to be 25,000. I have seen the Indians
themselves throw stones at it ; and I once saw a

* Bernard Diaz del Castillo.

t Popularly called Montezuma's watch.

boy jump upon it, clench his fist, stamp with his
foot, and use other gesticulations of the greatest
abhorrence. As I had been informed that the*
sides were covered with historical sculpture, J
applied to the clergy for the further permission of
having the earth removed from around it, which
they not only granted, but, moreover, had it per
formed at their own expense. I took casts of the
whole. It is twenty-five feet in circumference, and
consists of fifteen various groups of figures, repre-
senting the conquests of the warriors of Mexico
over different cities, the names of which are written
over them.

But the largest and most celebrated of the
Mexican deities was known to be buried under the
gallery of the university. It was liberally dis-
interred at the expense of the University in a few
hours ; and Mr. Bullock had the pleasure of
seeing the resurrection of this horrible deity,
before whom tens of thousands of human victims
had been sacrificed.

It is scarcely possible (observes our author) for
the most ingenious artist to have conceived a statue
better adapted to the intended purpose ; and the
united talents and imagination of Brughel and
Fuseli would in vain have attempted to improve it.

The idol was hewn out of one solid block of
basalt, nine feet high, its outlines giving an idea
of a deformed human figure, uniting all that is
horrible in the tiger and rattle-snake.

Instead of arms it is supplied with two large
serpents, and its drapery is composed of wreathed
snakes, interwoven in the most disgusting manner,
and the sides terminating in the wings of a vulture.
Its feet are those of the tiger, with claws extended
in the act of seizing its prey, and between them
lies the head of another rattle-snake, which seems
descending from the body of the idol. Its decora-
tions accord with its horrid form, having a large
necklace composed of human hearts, hands, and
skulls, and fastened together by the entrails. It
has evidently been painted in natural colors, which
must have added greatly to the terrible effect it was
intended to inspire in its votaries.

If that grim stone could have spoken, what
agonizing scenes it might have described !

The heart still panting was taken by the priest
from the breast, and deemed the more acceptable to
the deity if it smoked with life ; and the mangled
limbs of the victim were then divided amongst the
crowd as a feast worthy of the goddess. In the
night of desolation, called by the Spaniards Noche
Triste, in which -many were made prisoners by the
Mexicans, the adventurous Cortez, and his few
remaining companions in arms, were horror-stricken
by witnessing the cruel manner in which their cap-
tive fellow-adventurers were dragged to the sacrifi-
cial stone, and their hearts, yet warm with vitality,
presented by the priests to the gods ; and the more
the separated seat of life teemed with animation,
the more welcome was the offering to the goddess
— the more heart-rending the cries of the victims,
the more grateful the sacrifice to this monster
representative of deformity and carnage.*

* Six Months in Mexico. Those who saw, as I did,
the cast of this infernal deity, in Mr. Bullock's Ex-
hibition in 1824, will acknowledge that his description
is not overcharged.

122

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

PART XIV.

EVENTS come round in cycles. In 1750, the
winter was as mild as that which has just passed,
and the spring very early. In Sweden, the
" steel nights," which are generally felt in all
their rigor somewhere about the last week in
February, were so entirely absent, that lands
were sown in Upland in that week ; the usual
time for sowing in Sweden seldom arriving before
April. Harald Barck, who records this unusual
mildness and its consequences, adds, that he is not
ignorant that the lands in some of the northern
provinces, especially those which abound in clay,
require early sowing, that the ground may be
broken with less trouble, and that the first shoots
of .the barley may make their way through it
before it grows stiff. He adds, that the people
of Schonen, and others that dwell near the sea,
sow late, whether the spring be early or not ; and
that sometimes to their great loss, for no other
reason than that they received this custom from
their ancestors. The most northern inhabitants
of Sweden find it necessary to sow as soon as the
frost breaks up, that the short summer may per-
fectly ripen the grain before the winter approaches.
For as eggs require a fixed time for the exclusion
of the young, so the barley does in different
provinces to ripen the seed.* Harald then gives
a table of the times of sowing in different local-
ities, in different years, the latest time being the
18th of June, and the earliest the 16th of April.
He concludes, from these observations, that the
sowing of barley nearly coincides with the folia-
tion of the birch, at least in Upland, and other
places adjacent. He remarks, that it is a popular
error, that less time passes between the sowing
and ripening of wheat in their northern provinces
than at Upsal, and that this happens, because the
summer days are longer in the north, and there is
scarcely any night to retard its growth. But this
error is made evident by the grain ripening in as
short a time in Schonen as in Lapland ; for bar-
ley, in the champaign part of Schonen, is sown
about the 29th of May, and reaped sooner than in
Upland. But why barley ripens later in Upland
and Wessmania, than in the other provinces of
Sweden, he confesses to be an absolute secret to
him.f

With us, though Aquarius has been predomi-
nant, there has been hardly any freezing — none of
any consequence — though as late as the 12th of
February, I saw ice on the water in St. James'
Park, as if Jack Frost was determined to show
that his power was not utterly extinct. But the
yellow aconite and primroses were in bloom early
in January ; and on the 10th of that month,
baskets full of them were exposed for sale in
Covent Garden Market. On the 12th the posies
of wall-flowers, polyanthuses, and garden anemo-
nes, were hawked about the streets ; and on the
19th, wall-flowers, with some of the blossoms ex-

* Amaen. Acad.

t Ibid.

panded, which had been dug up for planting in
the suburbs, and in the broken pan of the artisan,
to remind him that there is such a place as the
country, which he is beginning to forget, were
pitched there in full panniers. On the llth and
12th of February, crocuses were to be seen
expanding their golden chalices in some of the
miniature London gardens — gardens which, as the
late Lord Canterbury said of poor dear Theodore
Hook's at Fulham, look as if they might be kept
in order with a pair of scissors and a toothpick ;
but I saw those welcome heralds of spring, decked
with their glowing tabards as early as the 2nd of
that month some few years since.

The Frost-genius takes his opportunities of
convincing mortals that his reign has not passed
away, by a demonstration of more than ordinary
severity, as he did in 1783-4, when Paris espec-
ially was frozen to her very marrow, and the
greatest distress prevailed ; nor did the thaw per-
manently tafce place till late in February. Louis
XVI. and Marie Antoinette put forth all their
benevolent powers to relieve the pinching misery
of that icy grasp, and the blessings of the people
were inscribed on obelisks of snow as durable as
their gratitude.

19th January. — A genial afternoon, with a good
spice of an old May day in it, led me to the
Zoological Gardens, where a Tapir was lounging
about in the open air, as comfortable apparently as
if it had been in South America. Hippo very
much grown, and thriving admirably. His food
still oatmeal and milk, and it must be told — as the
well-bred Hamet informed me in a whisper —
" Many horse-dung ;" of which latter condiment
he consumes a great deal, and has long done so.
This reminded me of a passage in Sparrman, in
which he anticipates the possibility of bringing
one of these animals to Europe. Speaking of the
sucking hippopotamus which he captured and dis-
sected, the Swedish doctor says, " I am apt to sup-
pose that one a little older than this would not be
very nice in its food ; as that which we caught
was induced by hunger, as soon as it was let loose
near the wagon, to put up with something not
extremely delicate, which had been just dropped
from one of our oxen."

It is not at all improbable that the animal took
this, not from pressure of hunger, but as a cor-
rective to the milk, the curd of which was found
in its stomach ; and it is possible, that the suck-
ing hippopotamus, in a state of nature, may have
recourse to the droppings of the parent for that
purpose. This does not seem to have occurred to
Sparrman, who, after relating his anecdote,
observes, that this may appear very extraordinary
in an animal with four stomachs ; but there have
been instances of this kind known in common cat-
tle, which in Herjedal, are partly fed with horse-
dung. He states, that he has been assured, that
this method of feeding cattle has been practised
with great advantage in Upland when there has

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

123

been a scarcity of fodder ; and that afterwards,
these same cattle, even when they have not been
in want of proper fodder, have taken to this food
of their own accord, and have eaten it without
anything else being mixed with it.

The regimen has agreed with our Hippo
wonderfully. No animal could be in better
health. He was thoroughly enjoying existence
in his bath, wherein he spends more time as he
.grows older. The teeth are just come through,
and he seemed to take pleasure in champing Pro-
fessor Owen's stick when held near its mouth, as
a child would use a coral. When he rises after
his submersion, he shakes the water from his ears
with a brisk motion ; this he invariably does when
he emerges. The overlapping of the huge upper
lip stands him in good stead when he wishes to
expel the water from his mouth. He drives it
backwards with considerable force, and the water
rushes from under the overlap, as if from a
gigantic pair of gills. When in its natural state,
the animal feeds upon water-plants, scooped up by
its enormous teeth, these sluices must be very
convenient for getting rid of the mud and water.

The great tortoise had buried its head in the
sand in the Ostrich-house up to the shoulders ; but
the greater portion of the shell and the lower
extremities were exposed. I hope it may be
alive, but I have my misgivings. Not one of the
large tortoises that I recollect has survived. Yet
White's old tortoise retired annually under his
bunch of hepaticas, and lay sliug in the ground,
open to every skyey influence, till rejoicing nature
bade winter farewell. A smaller one rested its
head upon the sand, but had not buried itself at
all.

I suspect that we do not know how to manage
these creatures, which perish in consequence of
the artificial life they lead. The hybernation is
incomplete — and this intermediate state, this life
in death, neither one thing nor the other. The
animal consequently loses its balance and dies !

So ! The Polar Bear has escaped a vinculo
matrimonii, and remains in his bachelor's den on
a separate maintenance. I thought how it would
be. They led a regular cat and dog life ; she
growling and snapping whenever he came near
her, and he looking and acting like a thorough
Jerry Sneak, and giving unmistakable evidence
of his anxiety to get out of such company, by
rearing himself up against the walls of his prison,
and examining every part of it — not without effect.
For, some days since, he scaled the smooth wall
of the yard, and, notwithstanding the inverted
cheval-de-frise with which it was fortified, got
clear of his prison and his termagant wife at once.
He was discovered, early one morning, near the
Dromedary-house, by a blacksmith who had come
to his work.

The blacksmith looked at the white bear, and the
white bear looked at the blacksmith, who, like a
valiant and wise smith, did not run, but stood his
ground and shouted ; whereupon the bear retreated
into a bush of laurel. Presently the bear put

forth his nose, as if meditating an advance, when
the smith shouted again, and the bear again drew
back. This amcebaean scene continued till the
shouts of the man collected some of the keepers,
who instantly took measures for his recapture.
He walked off, got upon the shed at the end of
the new aviary, and descended thence into the
paddock. Hereabouts, Cocksedge, who some
years back boldly marched up to a crouching lion,
of which he had the care, but which had escaped
from the old temporary Carnivora-house near the
spot where the Dromedary-house now stands, and
was ogling some antelopes and deer in the adjoin-
ing close with no amorous intentions, came up
with the bear. Him he treated differently from
the lion, whom he seized by the mane, and led
back to his den ; but the bear having no mane,
Cocksedge tackled " The Polar," as he is called
in some of the Fair bills, in a different way. The
brave keeper advanced with a strong rope, which
had a running noose, and threw it over the
monster's neck ; and then he pulled, and the bear
pulled, till the rope broke. Bruin quietly lifted
his arm, and, with his fore-paw, disembarrassed
himself of the noose. Cocksedge, nothing daunted,
caught him with another rope, and a struggle
ensued, the infuriated beast biting the rope till he
got free, and walking on, followed by a detachment
of keepers, who managed, by heading him at
proper intervals, and showing a bold front, to keep
him out of the park. While they were trying to
prevent this, he made a desperate, but, luckily,
ineffectual rush at one of the men. At last, by
dint of marches and counter-marches, they so
managed their tactics, that they drove him gradu-
ally up to the door of a den which stood invitingly
open, and in he went, and was secured ; not,
however, without dashing with all his weight and
strength at the gate of his new prison. This
escape led to an immediate order for caging the
whole of the white-bear yard overhead with iron,
where Bruin is again domiciled with his partner,
a reconciliation having taken place ; and, now,
with the exception of an occasional squabble, not
uncommon in such cases, they get on very well
together.

But we must return to the reptile-house, and,
like the witch of Ben-y-gloe, finish our snakes.*

And here I would venture to suggest an im-

* Those who have not had the pleasure of reading
Mr. Scrope's stirring book on Deer-stalking had bet-
ter possess themselves of it at once ; and there they
will find the witch surrounded by all the horrors in
which M. G. Lewis, that "jewel of a man," as Byron
called him, could envelop her. Here is a morsel or
two by way of a whet : —

She heard him on her mount of stone,
Where, on snakes alive, she was feeding alone;
And straight her limbs she anointed all
With basilisk's blood, and viper's gall.

But seeing, before away she sped,
That her snakes, half-eaten, were not yet dead,
She crushed their heads with fiendish spite,
But had not the mercy to kill them quite.

Now, if lords and ladies are curious to know
What became of the witch when she left Ben-y-gloe,
'T is right to inform them, for fear of mistakes,
That home she went, and finished her snakes.

124

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

provement in the ordering and keeping the reptiles,
which must materially affect the comfort and health
of the fine specimens which are there preserved.
Generally speaking, reptiles, snakes especially,
are very fond of water, not merely for the purpose
of drinking, but of taking a bath. Most of the
boas and pythons, of which there is such a fine
show, haunt the neighborhood of waters in their
natural state ; and in the summer months, the
serpents in the reptile-house may be observed
availing themselves of the scanty accommodations
afforded them. On the 28th of July, in the last
year, there was not a single serpent, with the
exception of what may be termed the more arid
species, that was not making the most of the
milk-pans of water, that did duty for baths. It
was at once ludicrous and painful to see the efforts
of the more gigantic snakes to cool their heated
systems in an allowance of fresh water, which
would be considered stinted in a long voyage.
The rock-snake could do no more than get its
head, and no great part of its neck, into its pan,
and there the head lay motionless, except when it
was, ever and anon, plunged under the surface,
the brandished bifid tongue proclaiming the relish
with which the fevered animal, enclosed in glass,
enjoyed the limited relief. Think what a mag-
nificent sight it would be to see the Oular Sawa,*
and the grand Python Sebae, disporting in a well-
filled bath of adequate dimensions. The pans do
tolerably well for the smaller serpents, which show
the gratification that they feel by coiling them-
selves up in them with nothing but their head
out. One of these was thus coolly reposing while
a little fish, destined for its maw, was quietly
swimming about in the pan, utterly unconscious
of the deadly vicinage. But any one who has
observed the graceful sinuosities of our pretty
ringed snake,f in crossing a pond, must feel how
much is lost by depriving the spectator of a satis-
factory view of the animal while obeying its
natural instincts, to the gratification of both.
These snakes will take fish as well as frogs, but
rarely, and then most probably in consequence of
a scarcity of their ordinary batrachian diet. The
snake generally takes the frog behind, as the lat-
ter is fleeing from its deadly enemy ; and, in such
cases, the frog is swallowed rump foremost, the
hinder legs being protruded forwards and sticking
out in a sort of amorphous bunch with the head,
as the unhappy frog is gradually swallowed alive.
It is very distressing to witness this operation,
rendered more painful by the shrill cries of the
frog ; and I have more than once liberated the
agonized patient, while fishing, by striking the
serpent's head and neck with the point of my rod
— a piece of humanity somewhat questionable,
especially as I do not remember that I left off
pulling out the trouts upon such occasions ; but
then they did not cry. The process of deglutition
is horrible to behold, and the martyred frog de-
scends into its living sepulchre a living thing.

* Python reticulatus. f Natru torquata.

Mr. Bell saw a little one, which had been swal-
lowed by a very large snake, leap out of the
mouth of the latter, taking advantage of an
unlucky gape of the snake after the operation was
over — an action which is not uncommon with
serpents immediately after they have swallowed
their prey ; and he heard, on another occasion, a
frog distinctly utter its peculiar cry several min-
utes after it had been swallowed by the snake ;
this I can confirm. Sometimes two snakes seize
upon one luckless frog at the same time — a joint
seizure, which is not very likely to happen when
the animals are at liberty, and in their natural
state, but which passed under the eyes of Mr.
Bell, the litigant parties being in imprison-
ment.

He tells us that, on placing a frog in a large
box, in which were several snakes, one of the
latter instantly seized it by one of the hinder legs ;
and, immediately afterwards, another of the snakes
took forcible possession of the fore legs of the
opposite side. Each continued its inroads upon
the poor frog's limbs and body, till the upper
jaws of the snakes met, atid one of them slightly
bit the jaw of the other ; this was immediately
retaliated, Mr. Bell thinks without any hostile
feeling, quaere tamen, as the lawyers say ; for,
after one or two such accidents, the strongest of
the snakes commenced shaking the other, which
still kept its hold of the frog, with great violence,
from side to side, against the sides of the box.
Then the combatants rested for a few moments,
when the other returned to the attack ; and at
length the one which had last seized the frog,
having a less firm hold, was shaken off, and the
conqueror swallowed the prey. Mr. Bell, who
did not throw his warder down during this gentle
passage of arms, then put another frog into the
box, which was at once seized and swallowed by
the unsuccessful combatant.*

My observations agree with those of Mr. Bell
in cases where the snake seizes the frog by the
middle of the body. The serpent then turns the
frog, and swallows it head foremost, as the great
constricting serpents do by their prey when they
have killed and crushed it by the pressure of their
enormous folds. It is curious to observe the
adaptation of power by these constrictors. When
a comparatively small boa, or python, seizes a
rabbit, it becomes a congeries of coils around the
victim ; a large one applies one fold just sufficient
to kill without the useless application of further
muscular pressure. In taking lizards and birds, /
the common snake swallows the prey head fore-
most, for the obvious reason of security ; such, at
least, is the result of my observation, as well as
that of Mr. Bell, who kept a number of these ser-
pents, one of which was an especial pet, and dis-
tinguished its master from all other persons.
When let out of its box it would immediately go
to him, and creep under the sleeve of his coat,
where it would lie revelling in the warmth.

* British reptiles.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

125

Every morning, at breakfast, it came to his hand
for its allowance of milk ; but it fled from stran-
gers, and hissed if they meddled with it.

By the way, Major Denham, in his African
Travels, mentions an instance of the supposed vir-
tues of the fat of serpents, when applied to beasts.
Near Lari, he and his party killed an enormous
snake, which he calls a species of coluber — a
python, probably — measuring eighteen feet from
the mouth to the tail. Five balls entered the ser-
pent, but it was still moving off, when two Arabs,
each armed with a sword, nearly severed the head
from the body. On opening the reptile, several
pounds of fat were found, and carefully taken off
by the two native guides. They pronounced it
to be a sovereign and much-prized remedy for
diseased cattle.

As I looked at the collection of venomous ser-
pents, the least of which carried death under its
lips, the out-of-the-way remedies which the savage
and the half-civilized man successfully uses, came
into my mind. Their cures, if we may believe
honest witnesses, are far more frequent than those
effected by European science.

Labat, when in the West Indies, was called to
confess a young negro, who had been bitten by a
serpent seven feet long, and as big as a man's leg,
three fingers' breadth above the ankle. The ser-
pent had been killed, under the idea that when
it was dead the poison, by some sympathetic law,
would act with less force. The patient was lying
on a plunk in the middle of his hut, between two
fires, covered with blankets, and yet he said he
was dying with cold, at the same time constantly
crying for drink to assuage a devouring internal
heat. He had also a prodigious desire to sleep.
His leg was very strongly tied below and above
his knee with a species of ozier, and both foot and
leg were horribly swollen, and so was the knee,
notwithstanding the ligatures. The worthy father
confessed him, but was obliged to hold his hand,
and keep moving it, to prevent him from sleeping
during the ceremony. He afterwards recovered.
Captain Forbes, in his highly interesting book,
Dahomey and the Dahomans, relates that the
natives have an infallible remedy for the bite of
the deadly cobra. One of the captain's hammock-
men had been bitten three times, but his father
was a doctor. Walking one day through some
long grass, the captain pointed to the bare legs of
his attendant, and hinted at his danger. " None,"
said he ; "my father picks some grass, and if on
the same day the decoction is applied, the wound
heals at once."

This did not seem strange to the captain, who
had seen the fights between the cobra and the
mongoose, in India. He says that the cobra has
always the advantage at first, and the mongoose,
apparently vanquished, retreats as far from his
enemy as possible, but, on devouring some wild
herb, revives, returns to the attack, and conquers.
In short, he corroborates the accounts given by
former travellers and observers, of these duels
between the quadruped and the reptile.

9

The same author records that, in the kingdom
of Dahomey, the killing by accident, or otherwise,
of a fetish snake, was formerly punished by death ;
but that the penalty is now mitigated to running
the gauntlet through the fetish priests, who be-
labor the criminal without mercy ; nor is he free
till he reaches water, to wash out his sin. The
captain states that the lions of Whydah are the
snake fetish house and the market. The former
is a temple built round a huge cotton-tree, in
which are, at all times, many snakes of the boa
species (python). These are allowed to roam
about at pleasure ; but, if found in a house, or at
a distance, a fetish man or woman is sought,
whose duty it is to induce the reptile to return,
and to reconduct it to its sacred abode, while all
that meet it must bow down and kiss the dust.
Morning and evening, many are to be seen pros-
trated before the door, whether worshipping the
snakes directly, or an invisible god, which is
known under the name of " Seh," through these
representatives, the gallant captain confesses that
he is not learned enough to determine.

The fascination of serpents has been stoutly
maintained by some, and as strongly denied by
others. Acrell notices this phenomenon as being
confirmed by the evidence of several of his coun-
trymen, who had been a long while resident at
Philadelphia. They related that the American
rattlesnake, which they described as the most in-
dolent of serpents, unquestionably possessed this
power. They declared that, as the snake lies
under the shade of a tree, opening his jaws a
little, he fixes his brightly glittering eyes upon
any bird, or squirrel, which is in it. The squir-
rel, so runs their account, utters a mournful and*
feeble cry, and, as if foreseeing his fate, leaps
from bough to bough on every side, seemingly to
attempt a sudden escape ; but, struck with the
fascination, he comes down the tree, and flings
himself with a spring into the very jaws of his-
enemy. The observations of some Englishmen,
continues Acrell, seem to confirm the truth of this.
They shut up a mouse with one of these fascinat»-
ing rattlesnakes in an iron box ; the mouse sat. in
one corner — the rattlesnake was opposite to it. The •
reptile fixed its eye, terrible as Vathek's, upon
the little trembler, which was, at last, forced to
throw itself into the mouth of the serpent. Acrell
adds, that the same experiment was repeated in;
Italy with a pregnant female viper with the same •
success.*

A piece of evidence, apparently unintentional, .
occurs in Captain Forbes' book, already noticed 1.
On passing from the viceroy's house at Ahomey,
(the grass very high,) he observed, within an
inch of his leg, a small lizard, with its eyes fixed.
It did not move on his approach. At the same
moment, a cobra darted at it, and, before he could
raise his stick, bore it away — " rather a narrow*
escape from death," as the captain quietly ob-
serves. The captain makes no comment on that<

* Am. Acad.

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

part of the adventure here printed in italics ; nor
does it seem to have occurred to him that he had
under his eyes a proof of this deadly mesmerism.
Catesby thus tells the tale as 't was told to
him : —

The charming, as it is commonly called, or at-
tractive power, which this snake (the rattlesnake)
is said to have of drawing to it animals, and de-
vouring them, is generally believed in America ;
as for my own part, I never saw the action ; but a
great many from whom I have had it related, all
agree in the manner of the process ; which is, that
the animals, particularly birds and squirrels, (which
principally are their prey,) no sooner spy the snake
than they skip from spray to spray, hovering and
approaching gradually nearer their enemy, regard-
less of any other danger ; but with distracted ges-
tures and outcries, descend, though from the top
of the loftiest trees, to the mouth of the snake, who
openeth his jaws, takes them in, and in an instant
swallows them.

Animals of greater size, though they are not
fascinated, are affected at the presence of these
tteptiles by the most violent feelings of abhor-
:xence.

The largest I ever saw, says Catesby, was one

:ibout eight feet in length, weighing between eight

and nine pounds. This monster was gliding into

-the house of Colonel Blake, of Carolina, and had

• certainly taken his abode there undiscovered, had
not the domestic animals alarmed the family with

: their repeated outcries : the hogs, dogs, and poul-
try united in their hatred to him, showing the
greatest consternation by erecting their bristles and
; feathers ; and, expressing their wrath and indig-
nation, surrounded him, but carefully kept their

• distance; while he, regardless of their threats,
glided slowly along.

It is not an uncommon thing to have them come
into houses; a very extraordinary instance of

• which happened to myself, in the same gentleman's
i house, in the month of February, 1723 : the ser-
' vant, in making the bed in a ground-room (but a

few minutes after I left it,) on turning down the

• clothes, discovered a rattlesnake lying coiled be-
neath the sheets in the middle of the bed.*

Catesby '« evidence relative to the power of fas-

ccination is merely hearsay, it may be said; we

will therefore call Lawson, an eye-witness : —

They (rattlesnakes) have the power, or art (I
'•know not which to call it) to charm squirrels,
1 hares, partridges, or any such thing, in such a man-
i ner, that they run directly into their mouths. This
I have sr-en by a squirrel and one of those rattle-
;Snakes ; and other snakes have, in some measure,
; the same power.f

I remember, many years ago, witnessing the
effect produced by the sight of a serpent on the
larger animals. I was enjoying my book — it was
3The Lay of the Last Minstrel — on a delicious
cwarjn spring day, under one of the trees in the
upper part of our pretty hanging orchard, then
one sheet of blossom, when my attention was at-

* Carolina.

t History of Carolina, 1714.

tracted by the loud outcries of several turkeys far
away towards the lower part, where the fruit-
trees ended. On looking up, I saw them sur-
rounding a tuft of grass more than usually lux-
uriant. They craned over at this tuft, which
they surrounded, keeping at a respectful distance,
however, with ruffled plumage and half-expanded
tails, uttering the short, often repeated cry, pit,
pit, pit, as turkeys do, when they are annoyed and
frightened. As I advanced, their gestures and cries
were redoubled ; and, upon coming up, I saw a very
large common ringed snake coiled up in the tuft.
At my approach, it started off, followed by myself
and the turkeys, they still crying and gesticulat-
ing, but saved itself in the hedge. I could not
help asking myself whether the Transatlantic
blood in their veins had not roused their latent
instincts, and impressed their brains with the no-
tion that they had come upon one of the smaller
rattlesnakes.

By the way, there is no longer a shadow of
doubt that the serpents operated upon by the ser-
pent-charmers at the Zoological Garden last year,
had been deprived of their poison-fangs by mechan-
ical means.

Acrell, at the close of his statement relative to
the alleged fascination of serpents, asks — " Do we
not see, in the summer, a parallel instance at
home, in the toad, a most indolent animal, into
whose mouth, as it lies in the shade or under a
shrub, butterflies and other insects fly?"

Certainly the insects do fly into the toad's
mouth, but not, it may be suspected, without a
little help ; and this reminds me of the promise
to give my readers some notion of the mechanism
by which the tongue of that reptile acts with such
marvellous rapidity and certainty in securing its
prey.

Mr. Arscott, of Tehott, Devonshire— 't is an
old tale, but none the worse for that — kept a pet
toad, which, when he first knew it, was called by
his father, " the* old toad;" and Mr. Arscott,
fils, answers for a knowledge of it for thirty-six
years. How long would it have lived ?

Ay, that is the question, which a mischievous
devil of a tame raven — those ravens are certainly
supremely diabolical — took care should not be
answered ; for he dabbed one of the poor toad's
eyes out with his horny beak, after kenning' it, as
if to satisfy himself, like one of Homer's heroes,
where he could plant his dab so as to do it most
mischief, as it came out one fine evening from the
hole which its kind master had caused to be made
for it under the third step, when he " new-laid
the steps;" and, at the same time, otherwise mal-
treated the poor sweltering pet. so that it was
never the same toad again. The story is extant,
and written in choice English, in the Appendix
to Pennant's British Zoology, to which the reader
is referred for the interesting details, which,
while they show that the kind and observing nar-
rator was ignorant of some things that modern
science has made manifest, indicate the honest
truth of his narrative.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

127

Well, it had frequented the steps before the
iiall-door some years before he became acquainted
with it. His father, who admired its size —
which was of the largest the son ever met with —
paid it a visit every evening. He himself con-
stantly fed it, and brought it to be so tame, that
it always came to the candle, and looked up as if
expecting to be taken up and brought upon the
table, where he always fed it with insects of all
sorts. It was fondest of flesh magots, which he
kept in bran. It would follow them, and, when
within a proper distance, would fix its eye, and
remain motionless for near a quarter of a minute,
as if preparing for the stroke, " which was an
instantaneous throwing its tongue at a great dis-
tance upon the insect, which stuck to the tip by a
glutinous matter;" and he adds, most truly, " the
motion is quicker than the eye can follow."

And here is the solution of the so-called fasci-
nation in which Linnaeus himself believed ; for in
the Systcma Natura (1766) the reader will find,
under Rana Bufo, the following assertion : Insecta
in fauces fascino revocat.

I always imagined — (says that acute observer,
the younger Mr. Arscott) — that the root of its
tongue was placed in the forepart of its under jaw,
and the tip towards its throat, by which the motion
must be a half-circle ; by which, when its tongue
recovered its situation, the insect at the tip would
be brought to the place of deglutition. I was con-
firmed in this by never observing any internal
motion in the mouth, excepting one swallow the
instant its tongue returned. Possibly I might be
mistaken, for I never dissected one, but contented
myself with opening its mouth and slightly inspect-
ing it.

No, my good Mr. Arscott, you were not mis-
taken ; and you have described the process beau-
tifully ; but how is the action performed?

The anomalous structure and position of the
tongue in most of the anurous or tailless batrachi-
ans* — that is, tailless in their last and most
perfect state — are very striking. Soft and fleshy
almost throughout, that organ is, in the toad,
unsupported at its base by any internal bone.
The os hyo'idcs is altogether absent, and the tongue
is attached anteriorly in the concavity formed by
the two branches of the lower jaw towards the
symphysis, so that its root, instead of being at the
back of the fauces, is in the interior edge of the
fore part of the lower jaw, and its free extremity
is in the back part of the mouth, and before the
aperture of the air-passages, when it is at rest.
When in action, it becomes considerably elon-
gated, and is projected sharply out of the mouth,
as if it turned on a pivot in the anterior edge of the
jaw ; so that, when thrown out, the surface which
was under, when in repose in the mouth, comes
uppermost ; and, when returned into the mouth,
the surface which an instant previously was
uppermost, resumes its original position, and is
lowermost. A viscous secretion, which is very

* In Dactylethra the tongue is attached at the back of
the mouth ; and Pipa has none.

tenacious, completes this engine of destruction ;
and, when employed in the capture of prey, it
reaches to a considerable distance, and returns
with the insect into the mouth, where the morsel
is generally compressed, involved in a further
glutinous sort of saliva, and submitted to the
action of deglutition. The muscular machinery by
which this action, so important to the animal, is
effected, is a beautiful example of adaptation ; for
the muscles which regulate the motion of the
bones and cartilages of the mouth act more
especially upon the lower jaw, the bone of the
mandible and the tongue, which is by their power
shot forth and returned with the prey with such
celerity, that, as has been before observed, he
must have a very acute and prompt vision who
can detect the action. Most observers will see
that when an insect comes within tongue-shot of
a toad when upon its feed, it disappears ; but few
will detect the action of the tongue itself, if the
reptile be healthy and lively.

Mr. Arscott's old toad had none of that antipa-
thy to spiders which old legends would have us
believe existed betwe'en those reptiles and insects ;
he used to eat five or six with his millipedes,
which Mr. Arscott took to be his favorite food,
and which were provided for the pet, till his
master found out that flesh magots, by their con-
tinual motion, formed the most tempting bait.
When offered blowing flies and humble-bees, it
would take them — and, in short, any insect that
moved ; and Mr. Arscott imagined that if a honey
bee had been put before it, it would have eaten
it, to its cost. Bees, however, are seldom stirring
at the same time as toads, which <lo not often
venture forth after sunrise or before sunset, though
they will occasionally come to the mouth of their
hole in the heat of the day, probably for air.
But Mr. Arscott once observed another large toad,
which he had in the bank of a bowling-green, at
noon, on a very hot day, " very busy and active
upon the grass ; so uncommon an appearance,"
says he, " made me go out to see what it was,
when I found an innumerable swarm of winged
ants had dropped round his hole, which tempta-
tion was as irresistible as a turtle would be to a
luxurious aJderman."

The pet-toad that lived under the steps did not
long survive the rough usage of that malicious
fiend, the raven. It never enjoyed itself, to use
Mr. Arscott's expression, after the attack, and
had a difficulty in taking its food, missing its
mark for want of the eye of which the raven had
deprived it ; and so it languished, and languish-
ing, did live for a twelvemonth, when its life and
sufferings ceased together.

I have satisfied myself that there is hardly any
insect of proportionate size that a toad will not
take when in motion ; and if an artificial fly were
moved before it, within tongue shot, it would
doubtless take it. Most of us have heard of the
mauvaise plaisanterie of throwing small pieces of
glowing charcoal to the poor bull-frog, which
swallowed them to its destruction, taking the

128

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

burning coals for fire-flies ; thus dying, involun-
tarily, the death of Cato's daughter.

" They that write of toads," quoth Master
Philemon Holland, in his translation of Pliny,
" strive a-vie, who shall write most wonders of
them ; for some say, that if one of them be brought
into a place of concourse, where people are in
great number assembled, they shall be all hush,
and not a word among them."

If this were but true, what a blessing an im-
portation of them would be into a certain great
house, where words now are much more plentiful
tban acts.

No kitchen where the cooks are too apt to boil
at a gallop, instead of regulating the pot at that
gentle rate which alone can insure the tenderness
of the joint, should be without the following bit
of the toad's skeleton : —

" They affirm, also, that there is one little bone
in their right side, which, if it be thrown into a
pan of seething water, the vessel will cool pres-
ently, and boil no more until it be taken forth
again. Now, this bone (say they) is found by
this means : If a man take one of these venomous
frogs or toads, and cast it into a nest of ants, for
to be eaten and devoured by them, and look when
they have gnawed away the flesh to the very
bones, each bone, one after another, is to be put
into a kettle seething upon the fire, and so it will
soon be known which is the bone, by the effect
aforesaid. There is another such like bone (by
their saying) in the left side; cast it into the
water that hath done seething, it will come to
boil and wallow again. This bone (forsooth) is
called Apocyuon ; and why so? Because y-wis,
there is not a. thing more powerful to appease and
repress the violence and furie of curst dogs than
it."

While some have proclaimed the toad as the
most poisonous of animals, others have denied it
any ->oxious qualities whatever.

According to ./Elian, death not only lurked in
its breath, but its very aspect killed, so that the
basilisk had in it a potent rival. " The precious
jewel in its head " was considered to be the
redeeming quality in the " ugly and venomous "
creature. This jewel was not its brilliant and
beautiful eye, which the earthy croaker was
said to have exchanged with the heavenly lark,*
but a stone well known to the collectors of the
last century as the bufonite, toad-stone, crapau-
dine, and krottenstein, supposed to be largely
endowed with medical and magical powers, and
familiar to the philosophers of the present, as one
of the fossil palatal teeth of a fish (pycnodus).

The whole animal was a repertorium for poi-
soners before the modern Canidias had hit upon

* The lore-sick Juliet exclaims : —

" It is the larke that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the larke makes sweet division ;
This doth not so : for she divideth us.
Some say the larke and loathed toad change eyes,
0 now I would they had changed voices too."

the powder of succession. The Roman ladies
who did not love their lords, hastened their de-
parture for the city of the dead by a bufonite
potion,* or an infusion of rubetan juice in a cup
of rich Celanian ;f and, as poisoning and witch-
craft generally went hand in hand,J there is no
cause for surprise that toads were choice contri-
butions for the charmed pot of secret, black, and
midnight hags. " Paddockefy calls " the witches
in Macbeth ; and the reptile was the first ingre-
dient in the caldron that raised the blood-boller'd
Banquo, and seared the eye-balls of the murderous
thane with the regal " show" of the disquieted
spirit's line.

The eleventh hag in Jonson's Masque of
Queens, exultingly sings —

I went to the toad, breeds under the wall ;
I charmed him out, and he came at my call.

And Gesner ascribes a power to it which was
believed to conduce to the quiet of mankind at the
expense of their vigor.

But those who assert the bad eminence of the
toad for " swelterd venom," and those who deny
it all noxious qualities — Pennant was inclined to
the latter opinion, and Cuvier believed it to be
innocuous — are both wrong. The exudation from
the pimples, or follicles, on the true skin of the
toad, especially about the head and shoulders, was
proved by Dr. Davy to be a very acrid secretion,
resembling the extract of aconite when applied to
the tongue, and even acting upon the hands.
Pressure causes this fluid to be emitted, occasion-
ally to some distance, and the defence stands the
toad often in good stead, especially when attacked
by dogs, which have been frequently seen to drop
the troublesome customer from their mouths,
with a shake of the head even more eloquent than
Lord Burleigh's. And yet this secretion, more
acrid than the poison of serpents, produces no
effect when introduced into the circulation. A
chicken was inoculated with it, and no alteration
was perceptible in its actions or health.

Those who are interested in the marvellous
stories of " antediluvian toads " will be well
rewarded by consulting Dr. Buckland's paper on
the subject in the fifth volume of the Zoological
Journal. He made several experiments by shut-
ting them up in cells, fashioned in a large block
of oolitic limestone, and in another of compact
siliceous sandstone, and buried the blocks with
the imprisoned toads three feet deep in his garden.
He placed others each in a small basin of plaster
of Paris, four inches deep and five inches in
diameter, and well luted them over with a cover-
ing of the same material. These were buried
with those immured in the blocks of stone. He
inclosed some in three holes cut for the purpose
in the trunk of an apple-tree. Two were placed

* JUVENAL, Sat. vi. 558. f Ibid., Sat. i. 69.

\ An malas

Canidia tractavit dapes 1 — HOB. Ep. iii. 8.
§ Padda and Tassa are the names assigned to the toad
in the Fauna Suecica.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OP A NATURALIST.

129

in one hole : the others were imprisoned singly,
and the holes were tightly plugged up. The
result of these experiments was, a conclusion that
toads cannot live a year excluded totally from
atmospheric air, and that they cannot survive two
years, if entirely prevented from obtaining food.

But let us, before we depart, look into the
reptile-house on a warm summer night. We
enter with a dark lanthorn. The light is no
sooner unveiled, than it seems to have a Prome-
thean effect on the statue-like forms that were so
still in the morning Now the scene is changed ;
now all is action, terrible action ; and we behold
the monstrous constricting serpents, and the hor-
rible poisonous snakes, and the uncouth lizards,
writhing, coiling, creeping, running, and pushing
against the transparent walls of their crystal
prison, till the nervous anxiety of some tempera-
ments may be pardoned for huddling up to the
keeper, and inquiring, with bated breath, whether
the glass is python and boa-constrictor proof?

March 27. — The rain it raineth every day.
The peck of dust, worth a king's ransom, will
hardly be forthcoming, and the farmer begins to
be uneasy about his oats. The garden in the
Regent's Park is a swamp. Both the great and
smaller tortoise in the ostrich-house are dead, as I
feared. A small one that buries itself two or
three feet deep in the earth, exposed to all the
skyey influences, does well. Hippo is flourishing,
and now has clover-chaff tea, with the boiled chaff
as a change of diet. • He drinks the tea, and then
eats the sop. His tank in the open air is advanc-
ing rapidly towards completion. The beautiful
crested pigeons,* with their hybrid young one,
are in fine condition. On the 8th September, in
the last year, I found Goura Victorias on her nest,
with her young one able to fly. On that day it
was five weeks old. The male bird, Goura coro-
nata, better known as " the great Amboyna
pigeon," which belongs to her majesty, was
strutting about on the ground. His productive
alliance with the species which bears our gracious
queen's name, is worthy of notice, particularly
when the difference of climate is taken into the
account. The egg — there was only one — from
which the hybrid sprung, was sat on twenty-eight
days before the young bird was hatched, by both
parents ; but the male was most assiduous and the
best nurse.

An egg was laid and hatched in 1849, but the
young one died a day or two after its exclusion.
The birds showing a disposition to sit in 1850,
the cover of a basket was placed upon the angle
of a stout, forked pole, in the great aviary ; and a
few birch twigs furnished to them. Out of these
rough materials they made a nest. They sat
side by side. The male always sat with his head
fronting the spectator, or nearly so, as if he was
keeping watch, and the female with hers exactly
in the opposite direction, so that the head of the
cwk was parallel to the tail of the hen. The

* Goura coronata and Goura Victorias.

young one was fed from the crops and mouths of
both parents.

And here we cannot but feel with John Hun-
ter, who discovered the curious organization in
the dove kind, which enables the parents to sup-
port their young with the curd-like contents of
their crops — from their own bodies, in short, as
the mammalia do in the early stages of the exist-
ence of their offspring— that the nourishment of
animals admits, perhaps, of as much variety in
the mode by which it is to be performed, as
any circumstance connected with their economy,
whether we consider their numerous tribes, the
different stages through which every animal
passes, or the food adapted to each in their dis-
tinct conditions and situations. The food fitted
for one stage of life is rejected at another.

Animal life (as Hunter observes) may be
divided into three states, or stages : the first com-
prehending the production of the animal and its
growth in the fetal state ; the second commencing
when it emerges from that state by what is called
the birth, but leaving it for a time, either medi-
ately or immediately dependent on the parent for
support ; the third when the animal is able to act
for itself. As a general proposition, it may be
laid down that the first and third stages are com-
mon to all animals ; but some classes — fishes and
spiders, for instance — pass directly from the first
to the third, having no intermediate stage.

The great physiologist then notices the infinite
variety in which Nature provides for the support
of the young in the second stage of animal life,
and that brings him to the statement of his dis-
covery. He tells us, and tells us truly, that the
young pigeon, like the young quadruped, till it is
capable of digesting the common food of its kind,
is fed with a substance secreted for that purpose
by the parent ; not, as in the mammalia, by the
female alone, but by the male also, and perhaps
more abundantly than by the female.

Every person who has kept parrots, maccaws,
and birds generally of that family, must have
noticed the power possessed by them of throwing
up the contents of the crop, and feeding each
other. Hunter, in common with others, saw a
cock paroquet regularly feed his hen, by first
filling his own crop, and supplying her thence
from his beak ; and he notices what every observer
who has kept such birds must have remarked —
namely, that when they are very fond of the per-
son who feeds and attends upon them, they per-
form the action of throwing up food, and often do
it. The cock pigeon, when he caresses the hen,
goes through the same forms of action as when he
feeds his young ; but Hunter adds, that he does
not know if at this time he throws up anything
from the crop. I have observed a similar action,
during the breeding season in rooks ; and I have
reason to believe that the cocks feed the hens
while they are sitting, as well as the young, with
food saved in a kind of gular pouch under the
lower mandible, but I do not know whether they
feed either the hens or the young with food which

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LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

has undergone any alteration in the crop, or
whether the hens feed their young or their mates
with such provender. Hunter, from the observa-
tions made by him on the parrot-kind, states that
he has reason to suppose that they are endowed
with the same power as the pigeons.

As the breasts or udders of mammiferous fe-
males become gradually enlarged and thickened at
the time of uterine gestation, so, during incuba-
tion, are the coats of the pigeon's crop ; and John
Hunter, on comparing the state of that organ
when the bird was not. sitting, with its appearance
during incubation, found the difference very re-
markable. In the first case, it was thin and mem-
branous ; but by the time when the young- were
about to be hatched, the whole, except the portion
which lay under the trachea, became thicker, and
assumed a glandular appearance, having its inter-
nal surface very irregular. It was likewise evi-
dently more vascular than in its former state, in
order to the conveyance of a quantity of blood
sufficient for the nourishing substance.

* Whatever may be the consistence of this sub-
stance when just secreted, it most probably very
soon coagulates into a granulated white curd, for
in such form," says Hunter, in continuation, " I
have always found it in the crop ; and if an old
pigeon is killed just as the young ones are hatch-
ing, the crop will be found as above described,
and in its cavity pieces of white curd, mixed with
some of the common food of the pigeon, such as
barley, beans, &c. If we allow either of the par-
ents to feed the brood, the crop of the young
pigeons when examined will be discovered to con-
tain the same kind of curdled substance as that of
the old ones, which passes from thence into the
stomach, where it is to be digested."

The joke about " pigeon's milk" is not so
groundless, after all. But see how beautifully
this dispensation is ordered, according to the ex-
igencies of the nestling : —

The young pigeon is fed for a little time with
this substance only, as about the third day some of
the common food is found mingled with it ; as the
pigeon grows older, the proportion of common food
is increased ; so that by the time it is seven, eight,
or nine days old, the secretion of the curd ceases
in the old ones, and of course no more will be
found in the crop of the young. It is a curious
fact, that the parent pigeon has at first a power to
throw up his curd without any mixture of common
food, although, afterwards, both are thrown up,
according to the proportion required for the young
ones.

I have called this substance curd, not as being
literally so, but as resembling that more than any-
thing I know ; it may, however, have a greater
resemblance to curd than we are perhaps aware of,
for neither this secretion, nor curd from which the
whey has been pressed, seems to contain any sugar,
and do not run into the acetous fermentation. The
property of coagulating is confined to the substance
itself, as it produces no such effect when mixed
with milk. This secretion in the pigeon, like all
other animal substances, becomes putrid by stand-
ing, though not so readily as either blood or meat,

it resisting putrefaction for a considerable time ;
neither will curd much pressed become putrid so
soon as either blood or meat.*

Those who would wish to examine this phe-
nomenon more closely will find preparations of the
pigeon's crop in that noble museum,f which is
John Hunter's best monument. No young birds
are in so forlorn a state as young pigeons, if the
parents are killed before the young can provide
for themselves. Birds of other species, stimu-
lated by the cries of the starving young which
have been deprived of parental aid, can and do
assist the little wretches, but none except an old
pigeon with its crop in a proper state can save the
life of a nestling dove.

The gouras, by whose alliance a third colum-
ban form of the same race has been ushered into
this breathing world of ours, in their natural stale,
are probably employed, like others of the dove
kind, in disseminating the fragrant nutmegs
through New Guinea, the Moluccas, and other
islands. For Sonnerat declares, and with truth,
that the pigeons which swallow the nuts whole
are nourished by the enveloping case, which is
alone digested, leaving the nut iiself uninjured, or
rather more readily prepared for germinating on
the soil whereon it is dropped.

The Zoological Society possesses a very fine
collection of Columbida, and a most interesting
tribe they are. Messengers of love, of peace,
and of war, they are allied very nearly, as we
have seen above, to the mammalia in one part of
their organization, and resemble them in some of
their habits ; for pigeons do not drink like most
birds by taking up a small quantity of water at a
time, and throwing the head upward and back-
ward, but, like horses or kine, suck up a long
continuous draught without raising the head, till
thirst is satisfied.

Columba : whence the name 1 Varro declares
from its cooing. Did'the same impression of its
notes on the ancient British ear call forth a simi-
lar appellation, and induce our ancestors to name
the birds colommen, kylobman, kulm, kolm, and
culver ?

The perseverance with which some of the
varieties, the carriers especially, when well
trained, will return from very long distances, is
wonderful : —

It blew and it rained.
The pigeon disdained

To seek shelter — undaunted he flew ;
Till wet was his wing,
And painful the string,

So heavy the letter it grew.

This same faculty, which in comparatively
modern times was degraded to giving notice to the

* Animal Economy, edited by Professor Owen. Long-
man and Co.

f The museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of
England, rendered doubly valuable by the learned and
elaborate Catalogue by Professor Owen, in 5 vols. 4to.
The preparations are numbered 3737 to 3741, both inclu-

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

131

authorities that the finisher of the law had done
his duty on the Tyburn hanging days — Hogarth's
graphic record of the custom will occur to most,*
— which afterwards sank to being the bearer of
the news of the prize ring, and now-a-days con-
veys the price of stocks to and from the continent,
or brings the first intelligence of the winner of the
Derby, kept Hirtius and Brutus constantly in-
formed of each other's designs and movements, as
the besieger, Antony, felt to his cost. In vain
did he spread his nets and try every stratagem to
bafils these couriers of the air : he had the morti-
fication of seeing them going and returning to and
fro over the beleaguered walls of Mutina. Anac-
reon's dove was employed on a more gentle mis-
sion.f And Taurosthenes sent one decked with
purple to his happy father in the Island of JEgina
with the news of his victory at the Olympic games
on the day of the pigeon's arrival.J We have
the authority of Sir John Maundeville — he who
made his way to the border of China in the reigns
of our second and third Edward — that the Asiatics
used them for the same purpose as the Romans.

In that contree, and other contrees bezonde, (says
that knight, warrior, and pilgrim,) thei han a cus-
tom whan thei schulle usen werre, and whan men
holden sege abouten cytee or castelle, and thei
withinnen dur not senden out messangers with let-
tere, fro lord to lord, for to aske sokour, thei
maken here letters and bynden them to the nekke
of a colver, and letten the colver flee ; and the col-
vern been so taughte, that they flee with the letters
to the very place that men wolde sende them to.
For the coheres been noryscht in tho places where
thei ben sent to ; and thei senden hem thus far to
beren here letters. And the coheres tetuornen
azen where as thei ben norisscht, and so they don
comrnounly.

During the crusade of St. Louis§ they were
so employed ; Tasso pressed them into the ser-
vice in the siege of Jerusalem ;|| and Ariosto
makes a dove the messenger that spread the news
of Orrilo's death through Egypt. ^f

The rapidity and power of flight of some of the
species is almost incredible. The passenger
pigeon** has been killed in the neighborhood of
New York with its crop full of rice, which the bird
could not have procured nearer than the fields of
Georgia and Carolina. Audubon, who relates
this startling, but, I believe, true fact, observes
that, as their power of digestion is so great that
they will decompose food entirely in twelve hours,
the birds which were taken in the neighborhood
of New York must have travelled between three
and four hundred miles in six hours, an average
of speed that reminds one of the famous horse
Childers. He, however, could not have sus-
tained his " flying" pace of a mile a minute for
more than a very short period, whereas the bird
is capable of keeping up its wonderful rate of

* Etty's dove ascending at the moment of Joan's agony,
and heralding the conclusion of the ardent logic of the
stake, will also be remembered.

t Ode 9. J JElian. § Joinville. || Book xviii.

IT Canto xv. ** Ectopistcs migratoria. Swainson.

progression during many successive hours. The
passenger pigeon would thus, as Audnbon ob-
serves, be enabled, were it so inclined, to visit
Europe in less than three days. Instances are
not wanting of its presence here ; but the Amer-
ican naturalist, who presented a number of these
birds to the Earl of Derby in 1830, with whom
they bred, seems to think that those which have
been seen at liberty in this country had escaped
from some aviary.

Wagers have been laid and matches have been
made to determine the rate of a carrier pigeon's
flight. In 1808 a young man in the Borough un-
dertook that his pigeons would fly thirty-five
miles in one hour. Three were thrown up at
five o'clock in the evening beyond Tunbridge
Wells, and arrived at their owner's residence in
fifty-three minutes, thus beating time by seven
minutes. A gentleman had a wager on this
event, and he sent a pigeon by the stage-coach to
Bury St. Edmund's, with a request that the bird,
two days after its arrival there, might be thrown
up as the clock struck nine in the morning. This
was done ; and at half-past eleven o'clock on that
morning the pigeon was shown at the Bull Inn,
Bishopsgate, into the loft of which respectable
establishment it had entered, having made its way
to that point in London in two hours and a half,
and having traversed seventy-two aerial miles.

When the trial of the annual prize for the best
carrier pigeon was decided at Ghent on the 24th
June, 1833, twenty-four birds which had been
conveyed from that town were thrown up at
Rouen at fifty-five minutes after nine o'clock in
the morning. The distance is 150 miles, be the
same, in lawyer's phrase, more or less, and the
first pigeon arrived at Ghent in an hour and a
half, sixteen came in within two hours and a half,
and three in the course of the day. Four were
lost.

He who would train a carrier pigeon must take
a young one that is fully fledged, and convey it in
a basket or bag, at first not more than half a
mile from home, and then turn it loose. After a
repetition of this short journey twice or thrice, the
future messenger should be taken to a distance of
two, four, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen miles, and
so on, and then turned loose, till it will return*
from the most remote parts of the kingdom. The
younger the bird is, if it have strength to fly well,
the greater is the chance of educating it for a
trusty bearer of a despatch. If this drilling is
not commenced early, birds of the best breed can-
not be trusted. Those who would succeed are
careful to keep the pigeon about to be sent off in
the dark without food for some seven or eight
hours before it is loosed. When thrown up, the-
bird rises, and when it has reached a good height,,
will at first fly round and round, and then make off,,
continuing on the wing without stop or stay, un-
less prevented, till its well-known home is reached.
A word to the wise by the way. Never throw
up your bird in a fog or hazy weather, or 't is tem
to one against its reaching its destination, or your

132

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

seeing it again. Those who have been in the
habit of travelling by the short stages or omni-
ouses in the neighborhood of London — to Hamp-
ton and Sunbury, for instance — must have ob-
served one of these aerial messengers suddenly
delivered from its darksome bag and thrown up
by one of the " outsides" to find its way home.

The spiral flight, when the birds are thrown
up, is evidently flight of observation, and when they
catch sight of any well-know landmark, away they
go homeward. But they are lost if no such
objects are within ken. Thus pigeons, when
loosed from a balloon at a great height, after fly-
ing round and round, have returned to the bal-
loon for want of objects to guide them in their
flight homeward. And yet there is on record a
wonderful instance of their return to their domi-
cile under circumstances of great difficulty, to say
the least of it, as far as guide-marks are con-
cerned.

The battle of Solebay was fought on the 28th
of May, 1672. Captain Carleton was a volun-
teer on board the London man-of-war in that en-
gagement, and he relates that on the first firing
of the London's guns, a number of pigeons kept
in the ship, and of which the commander was very
fond, flew away. Nowhere were they seen near
during the fight. It blew a brisk gale next day,
and the British fleet was driven some leagues to
the southward of the place where the birds for-
sook the ship. The day after, back came the
pigeons — not in one flock, but in small parties of
four or five at a time, till all the birds were safe
on board.

This unexpected return caused some conversa-
tion on board ; when Sir Edward Sprage told those
who expressed their surprise that he brought
those pigeons with him from the Straights, and
that when he left the Revenge for the London, all
those birds, of their own accord, and without the
trouble or care of carrying, left the Revenge, and
removed with the seamen to the London.*

Our tame varieties are generally considered,
and with good reason, to be derived from the
Blue Rock pigeon, or Rockier. f Pennant de-
scribes this species as swarming in the Orkneys
and Hebrides, and says that in the Orkneys they
collect by thousands towards winter, and do "great
damage to rick-yards. He saw in Hay, the bot-
toms of the great chasms covered with their dung
for many feet in thickness, which was drawn
up in buckets,' and used successfully as manure.
But great as is the facility with which they
are domesticated, they occasionally show symp-
toms of their original wildness. Pennant knew
a dove-cot, not far from Orm's-head, where the
pigeons resided, on account of the supply of
food, till the breeding season, when liberty and
love led them from the artificial pigeon-holes
to those wild and vast rocks.

This species abounds in the rocky islands of
the Mediterranean, and was no stranger to Vir-

* Cnrlftf,n''s Memoirs; and see Yarrell's highly intcrest-
ijng British Birds.
f Columba livia.

gil, as the beautiful lines in the fifth ^Eneid*
show.

Even in this vast brick Babylon, some pigeons
breed about Somerset House, both on the river
and land side. They are probably birds which
have been domesticated, and have escaped, pre-
ferring a comparatively wild life, with the sup-
plies afforded by the wharves and barges.

The proneness to domestication in this bird, or
rather in one of the varieties from it, was strongly
contrasted with the impracticability of reconciling
the ring-dove, cushat, or wood-pigeon, (Columba
palumbus,) to captivity, in Colonel Montagu's ex-
periment. It is true that he tamed them within
doors, "so as to be exceedingly troublesome ;"
but he never could produce a breed, either by
themselves or with the tame pigeon. Two were
bred up by him, together with a male pigeon, and
were so tame as to eat out of the hand ; but the
genial spring brought no signs of breeding, so they
were suffered to take their liberty in the month of
June, by opening the window of the room in which
they were confined, the colonel thinking that the
pigeon might induce them to return to their usual
place of abode, either for food or to roost ; but
no ; they instantly took to their natural habits,
and the colonel saw them no more. The pigeon
continued to return.

The gouras, it will be remarked, contrary to
the general habit of the Columbidae, laid only one
egg, and the passenger pigeon, according to Wil-
son, lays no more. In 1832, a pair of passengers
began a nest on the 25th of April, in a fir-tree
planted in one of the enclosures in the garden in
the Regent's Park. The hen was the architect,
but the cock was the laborer. Most perseveringly
did he collect and convey to the selected spot,
sticks, straws, and other nest materials. Every time
became in with his build ing materials, he alighted
on the back of the hen, so as not to disturb any
part of the structure which she had finished. On
the morning of the 26th, one egg was laid, and the
hen immediately began to sit. The cock took his
turn at incubation, and when sixteen days had
passed, the young bird appeared.

But if only one egg is laid by the passenger
pigeon, the numbers of the species exceed belief,
and they afford a most plentiful supply to our
Transatlantic cousins. Their roosting-places in
those deep and extensive forests exhibit an ex-
traordinary spectacle. The dung-covered ground
is strewn with the limbs of the trees broken down
by their weight ; the grass and underwood are
destroyed, and not unfrequently thousands of acres
of trees are killed. Upon the discovery of one of
these roosts, the whole country comes in to wage
war upon the birds during the night, with all
sorts of destructive engines ; guns, clubs, long
poles, and sulphur-pots, are plied in all directions,
till the invaders have filled their sacks and loaded
their horses to their hearts' content.

But the breeding-places are even more exten-
sive than the roosts. These, in the states of Ohio,
Kentucky, and Indiana, are generally in the back-

* L. 213, <fec.

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

133

woods, and often extend far across the country.
Wilson saw one not far from Shelbyville, in Ken-
tucky, which stretched nearly north and south
through the woods, extending upwards of forty
miles, with a breadth of several miles. In this
tract almost every tree bore nests, wherever there
was nest-room in the branches. The pigeons
made their first appearance about the 10th of
April, and those which escaped left the place
with their young before the 25th of May. As
soon as the young were fully grown, and before
they all left the nests, large parties of the inhabi-
tants came from all the parts adjacent, with wag-
ons, axes, beds, and working utensils, and, with
their families, encamped at this immense nursery.
Some of tHem told Wilson that the noise was so
great that their horses were terrified, and that it
was difficult for one person to hear another speak,
without bawling in his ear. The scene must have
been exciting and disgusting. The ground was
strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and
young squab pigeons, on which herds of hogs
were fattening. In the air, great numbers of
hawks, buzzards, and eagles were sailing, bearing
away the squabs from their nests at pleasure,
while from twenty feet upwards to the tree-tops
was one perpetual tumult of crowding and flutter-
ing multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring
like thunder. This din was heightened by the
crash of falling timber as the strokes of the axemen
brought down the trees most crowded with nests,
which they contrived to fell so as to bring down
several other trees in the fall. Two hundred
squabs, little inferior in size to the old ones, and
one heap of fat, were sometimes collected from
one fallen tree. Each nest contained one squab
only.

Wilson passed for several miles through this
same breeding-place, after the pigeons abandoned
it for another sixty or eighty miles ofF, and saw
enough of the remains of the nests to satisfy him
that the account which he had heard was not ex-
aggerated. The great numbers that passed over
his head confirmed him in this opinion. Not-
withstanding the havoc that had been made among
the birds, they still swarmed. The mast had
been for the most part consumed in Kentucky ;
and every morning, a little before sunrise, masses
of these pigeons set out for the Indiana territory,
about sixty miles distant. Many of them returned
before ten o'clock, but the main body generally
appeared on their return a little after noon.

Wilson had left the public road to visit the
ruins of the breeding-place near Shelbyville, and
was traversing the woods with his gun on the
way to Frankfort, when, about ten o'clock, the
pigeons which he had observed during the greater
part of the morning flying northerly, began to re-
turn in such immense numbers as he had never
before seen. He stopped at an opening by the
side of Benson Creek, where he had a more unin-
terrupted view, and there to his astonishment he
beheld them flying with great steadiness and rapid-
ity at a height above gun-shot, in several strata

deep, and close together. On they came, and
from right to left as far as the eye could reach,
the breadth of this vast winged procession, every-
where equally crowded, extended. He took out
his watch to note the time, and sat down to ob-
serve the passing masses. It was half-past one,
and for more than an hour did Wilson sit, ex-
pecting that this aerial animated stream would
cease to flow ; but instead of a diminution, the vast
procession seemed to increase in numbers and
rapidity. As he was anxious to reach Frankfort
before night, he rose and went on. At that town
he crossed Kentucky river, about four o'clock in
the afternoon, at which time the living torrent
above his head seemed as strong and as extensive
as ever. Long after this, large bodies continued
to pass for six or eight minutes. These were
followed by other detached flights, all moving in
the same south-east direction, till after six o'clock
in the evening.

A rough calculation of this mass was made by
the delightful American ornithologist, and he came
to the conclusion that its whole length was 240
miles, and that the numbers composing it amounted
to 2,230,272,000 pigeons at least ; indeed, he ex-
presses his conviction that these enormous num-
bers are probably far below the actual amount.

Think of the consumption of such legions.
Wilson did think of it, and observes, that allow-
ing each pigeon to consume half a pint of food per
diem, the whole quantity would equal 17,424,000
bushels daily.

Audubon, who has, to the great regret of his
friends, lately gone, full of years and honors, by
that dark road which must be passed by us all,
confirms Wilson in every particular, except that
Audubon declares that the passenger pigeon lays
tivo eggs. We have seen that, in confinement,
this bird, like the gouras, laid but one.

Lawson, in his Natural History of Carolina,
(1714,) records facts which confirm Wilson and
Audubon as to the numbers of these pigeons, de-
claring that the flocks, as they passed, in great
measure obstructed the light of day.

The great fertility of the dove-kind suffices to
keep up numbers more than adequate to resist the
attacks of hawks and other birds of prey, and the
still more sweeping destruction of man the omnir-
orous. Biberg* remarks, that if you suppose
two pigeons to hatch nine times a year, they may
produce in four years 14,672 young ; arid Stilling-
fleet states that these numbers ought to have been
14,670, or the expression should have been al-
tered, for Biberg includes the first pair.

On the day that I observed the young hybrid
goura," I watched the wart-hogs (Phacochcerus.)
Their mode of attack is by going on their knees
like the gnu; and, young as they were, they al-
ready had callosities on those parts. They were
exercising their tusks in a sham-fight with an
empty bag, which, dropping on their knees, they
charged, tossed up, and, rising, caught it on their
tusks. In the course of their gambols, they threw
. * Am. Acad.

134

LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST.

the bag on the top of the railing of their inclosnre.
One of them raised itself on its hind legs, jumped
at it, and pulled it down with its mouth, when
they resumed their game with it. The attack of
the full-grown animal, with its enormous sabre-
like tusks, must be most formidable.

Shortly afterwards, I came on a flock of ten
hoopoes, and stood admiring their butterfly-like
flight, which must aid them in their escape from
hawks, as the desultory motions of the butterflies
when on the wing save them from fly-catchers and
other small birds.

The three young grisly (?) bears were in high
force, one appealing to the people most energet-
ically for supplies, another dancing merrily, and
the third lagging behind with a sort of minuet
step. This lag had, no doubt, his reasons for
remaining in the back-ground, for I observed that
when the spectators threw food to the party, it
frequently passed over the two foremost, and was
quietly appropriated by the retiring character.
The attitude of the orator was a study for St.
Stephen's. They are evidently favorites, and all
three came in for their share ; but the Cleon of
the party secured the greatest portion of the elee-
mosynary biscuit.

5th April, 1851. — New lion arrived from South
Africa, and good friends with Cocksedge already.
The Sumatran Tapir looking in good health.
The carunculated crane and lovely Mandarin ducks
in high feather. Works everywhere in progress
to add to attraction in this annus miralilis. Hippo
was having a game of romps with a young Egyp-
tian gentleman lately come over, but kept in the
water, and now and then made a very queer face
at his playmate. The tank in the open air near
the giraffe-house is finished, and seats are prepar-
ing for the spectators, so that a multitude of all
nations may, during this exhibiting summer, see
Hippo in his bath at their ease. A building is
rising for Mr. Gould's magnificent collection of
humming-birds, the finest and most numerous
ever brought together. The work in which they
will be given to the public will surpass those of
this enterprising and liberal zoologist already
before the world, brilliant as they are. Though
the true Egyptian crocodile died on the voyage,
there is no reason to doubt that another may be
soon forthcoming. Poor Mr. Duncan has done his
best to interest the King of Dahomey to obtain a
live African elephant, as our readers may remem-
ber, but Captain Forbes, who seems actuated by
the same kindly feelings towards the society, found
that the king classed this attempt among the impos-

sibilities. His majesty could understand how a
wild elephant might be entrapped into a pitfall —
but to get him out and lead him away — no — he
could not or would not believe in the possibility
of that. But if there is a failure in the south,
the Viceroy of Egypt rules in the north ; and
there are safe grounds for hoping, that through
his highness'' powerful liberality, both an Afri-
can elephant and a rhinoceros may be forthcoming,
good Mr. Murray being on the spot to lake care
of the much desired additions. With the lide of
foreigners setting in to inundate these islands, two
orangs from Borneo, three feet high, and rejoicing
in the names of Darby and Joan, are coming.
Despatches have already been received, with a
programme for their treatment from morning till
night :

Every day when they go to dine,

They 're to have, at one, a slice of pine !

Poor dear Theodore ! If he were spared to
us, what a second edition of The Chimpanzee we
should have.

Negotiations are pending with Leyden for a
visit from the gigantic Salamander, Sicboldtia
maxima, found by Dr. Von Siebold, in such a
lake as we read of in the Arabian Nights, on a
basaltic mountain in Japan, and brought away
some twelve years since by the learned doctor.
The giant loved his wife, taken at the same time,
so well, that he ate her up during the passage to
Europe, and has thriven accordingly. This is
the closest living analogue to the fossil Andrias
Scheuchzeri, the Homo diluvii tcstis of that learned
illustrator of the Bible. I should not be surprised
if Mr. Mitchell, with whom all things seem pos-
sible, were, by hook or by crook, to beg or bor-
row an egg of the gigantic bird of Madagascar,
fit rival for the. New Zealand Moa.* Two of
j these eggs, besides fragments, are in Paris.
Each would hold six ostrich eggs, sixteen emeu
eggs, one hundred and forty eggs of the common
barn door hen, and a thousand humming-bird eggs.
Old Sinbad was a true man, after all ; and we
may catch a Rok yet.f

* Dinornis. Owen. Nearly a perfect skeleton of this
form has been found lying together, and is on its way to
this country.

t I have just seen (April 19) the Asiatic elephant,
with her calf, seven months old, at her side. They have
been secured to the Zoological Society by the energetic
management; and I hear that "more elephants " are
coming. Four are now to be seen in this noble collection ;
and before the year is out, a herd will probably be exhib-
ited in the Regent's Park.

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of Mr. Littell's judicious taste, for six dollars a
year(!) to select and mark for him as many excel-
lent things weekly, as the Living Age presents, at
that price — especially if, as is the case with most
men, that amount were all he could possibly under-
take to read !

In the Living Age we have never failed to recog-
nize the fine gold of the British Quarterly Reviews,
extracted with unerring taste, together with gems
from a host of less known, though scarcely lesser,
lights of literature, which irradiate the circles of
culture throughout the three kingdoms — such as
Chambers' Journal, Tait's, Fraser's, Sharp's, and
the Dublin University, Magazines. Nor are the
best productions of the Daily Newspaper Press, in
our own country and in Europe, denied a place in
this all-embracing literary banquet.

Before proceeding to quote a few passages from
the Prospectus of the work, we will add, for the
information and wonder of our readers, that as each
number contains 48 pages (each page equal to a
column of our paper) it is therefore equal to a
monthly magazine of 208 pages ! (that is, to three
of the largest sized American ornamental maga-
zines,) and makes in one year a book (or books)
containing 2,496 pages, octavo !

Thus, as to cheapness — you get, for one dollar and
a half, the bulk of a three dollar magazine, in the
BEST of the current literature of the English tongue,
and upwards in the same proportion. Again. —
We take now and then a peculiarly rich and rare
number of this always unapproachable publication,
as the text of an encomium w*» could never tire of
impressing upon our readers. The number for the
week ending May 26th, furnishes eminently one of
these fit occasion*. It contains as its chief attrac-
tions, among many others nameless, the Poem from
Eraser's Magazine which we place on eur last page

and invite all true lovers of poetry to enjoy at leis
ure as one of the most genuine things, in its touch-
ing way, that the more immediate day furnishes us :
a Tale from Bentley, which with leave of Provi-
dence we will not fail to treat our readers to next
week, and which will touch with rare delight and
instruction every heart endowed with the noblei
human feelings; "The Palace of Marly," trans-
lated from the French Musie de.s Families, which,
like its predecessor from the same source, and of
the same type, " The Palace of Fontainbleau" — is
rich in historical amusement and instruction ; and
several short poems of great merit, with Travels,
History, European politics, &c., as usual.

Possibly to some it may seem to require, to make
a " Living Age," nothing more than an avalanche
of all the great periodicals of tho world, such as Mr.
Littell brings into his office by every steamer. No
mistake, however, could be more absurd. A recent
attempt is now going forward, with signal unsuc-
cess, to imitate the design of the Living Age, by a
young man of some literary note in N. Y. The
exquisite TASTE which makes the compend edited by
Mr. Littell almost a perfect eclecticism of the lit-
erature of the age, has not been imitated, nor can
it easily be, however his general idea may be ap-
propriated by others. We draw this contrast, not
from any enmity, or want of respect, towards the
truly excellent periodical alluded to : but because
we prefer to sustain the original and immeasurably
superior Eclectic Weekly, in its due position before
the public, so far as our slight influence extends.

(EolonCjation ffieralB. — Littell's Living A.ge
continues to furnish its usual variety of instructive
and seasonable articles, adapted to the mental wants
of all classes of readers. In nearly every number,
and let it be remembered that every week presents
a fresh one, there is a leading paper of pith and
moment on some subject of history, or of biogra-
phy, or of literary criticism and research, accom-
panied with shorter articles on the engrossing
themes of the day; whether they be political, or
illustrative of practical science and the arts. In
the department of what is more commonly spoken
of as light reading, we meet with a fair proportion
of tales, poetry, and amusing satire. Again. — We
are glad, after an interruption of several months,
by the misapprehension of an agent, to renew our
intercourse with this ever pleasant and instructive
periodical, of the fortunes of which we had been
in ignorance, during the greater part of this time.

The Living Age is, we are glad to see, con
tinued in the same spirit of judicious selection,
amid a wide range that includes all the prominett
topics which interest mankind, viz., general poli-
tics, social progress, literature, and science, —
the movements and attractions and repulsions of
governments and people, the workings of genius
and the spread of knowledge by commerce,
travel and missionary enterprise. We see in its
pages all that Europe is doing, from the protests
against the incorporation of Cracow, and the cor-
respondence respecting the Montpensier marriage,
down to the comicalities of Mrs. Perkin's Ball,
with the intermediate rests for retrospective histo-
ry, biography, and tales.

N. 3T. 3&ecofUer. — Conducted on a most com-
prehensive plan; and with admirable judgment and
taste, it is worthy of all the commendations which
it has received, and all the patronage which it
has won.

NOTICES OF LITTELL'S LiHNG AGE.

N ¥. JQome journal. — This, in our opinion,
is the hest publication of its kind in the world.
Six dollars a year could not, by any possibility, be
better expended than in the purchase of this most
interesting and valuable periodical. Again. — It
answers, in a measure, the purpose of an Annual
Register. Besides the literary treat it so punctu-
ally affords, w« are pleased to find in its^ columns
the most important articles on the political affairs
of Europe, extracted from foreign and domestic
journals. The pithy communications to the Lon-
don Examiner, and the best descriptive letters from
Americans abroad to journals at home, find a place
beside the stately lucubrations of the Quarterly, and
the vivacious genialities of the Magazines. Again. —
At this season, when the reading public are deciding
upon their subscriptions to periodical literature, for
the ensuing year, we feel it incumbent upon us to
call special attention to " LitteWs Living Age." It
appears with rare punctuality, and is filled with the
spice of the English journals, and the articles de-
voted to the prominent topics of the day ; the best
reviews, tales, essays, poems, and sketches. Its
value is much enhanced by the judicious selections
from the American press. There is no single
work published which is so calculated to inform
and entertain readers with the spirit of the age —
critical, political, and literary. The management
of the work has been highly approved by all our
leading men.

American, SSPatetfeurs, <£onn, — This work has
so long maintained a conspicuous position in the
current literature of the day, that it requires only
to be known, to be valued. It is composed of a
judicious selection from all the foreign periodicals
of high standing, thus giving the very spirit of the
whole in a small and readable compass for a com-

Earatively small sum. The last number contains
jading articles from ten different magazines, be-
sides some eight minor selections.

W. Y. Commercial ^Dbetttser. — For miscel-
laneous reading, there are few if any periodicals
which compete with the Living Age.

, tESJestffelD, W. "£". — It is a glean-
ing of the best articles of the foreign magazines.
It is a history of the literary world from week to
week. You see in it what has tickled the fancy
of the Parisian within a month. The article that
has been the theme of English " table talk," or
that has stirred the German mind from the stagna-
tion of its excessive abstractions to healthful vigor,
within a few weeks past, is before you in the Age.

V!. ST. <£{)rtstian inquirer. — Rich as ever ;
containing the best things that have been said on
the most interesting topics of the day.

^Journal, Cabana, W. "£. — We have received
the first two January numbers of this very valuable
work. Though all that we have ever owned, they
are not all that we have ever read and admired.
LittelPs Living Age has established for itself a
reputation of which its proprietors may be justly
proud — that of being the best reprint of sound and
readable literature published in the country.

33aUw &lJbertts«?t, "Netoavfc, W. 35.— It repro-
duces in weekly inbtalments of some 50 pages much
of the most valuable matter of the foreign periodi-
cals. together with a general survey of the course

of matters and things at home. Its selections indi
cate good taste, and among the weekly publications
of the country we know of no one that has so many
attractions for readers who desire to keep an eye
upon the current literature of the day. It is well
printed in octavo form, and paged for binding.

ffiajette, 33urltnjjton, N. $. — It maintains, with
unswerving interest, its very high character. The
amount of choice reading which it supplies weekly,
from the principal newspapers, magazines, and re-
views, in this country and Europe, is really im-
mense.

Christian ffijjronicle, ^tyila. — We sincerely
pity any of our readers whose limited intellects or
purses debar them from the pleasure of this weekly
visitant. We should feel lost without it. It is
true to its high aims, and republishes the best con-
tributions to foreign periodical literature. A single
number is oftentimes worth the annual subscription.

journal, ^tttslmvsJ), $a. — Of all the
weekly publications in the United States, LiltelVs
Living Age stands at the head. It is an old pub-
lication ; and affords to its readers the cream of all
the scientific, literary, and political publications,
domestic and foreign. Such a work cannot fail to
meet with the approbation of every lover of science,
literature, and politics.

38anner of t&e (Kross, $J)tla. — This admirable
collection of articles, from the best of periodicals,
continues to sustain its high character. We always
receive it with pleasure. There is great judgment
shown in the selection of articles, so as to mingle
instruction and entertainment.

CSHn Chester, Vs. — This work
offers renewed attractions for the present year, con-
taining as it does the choicest selections from the
American press, and the spice of all the foreign
magazines and quarterlies known to the literary
world at large. To statesmen, divines, lawyers,
physicians ; to men of business and men of leisure ;
to the office and the hearth-side, it presents itself
with equal interest. In this age of cheap litera-
ture, a work which girds itself firmly and resolutely
against the influx of what is depraved and vicious
in morals, commends a notice from a respectable
and reading community, without further comment.
An immoral and sensual appetite will meet with
no gratification from a perusal of its pages ; its
aspirations seek to cater for no such depraved taste.
We predict for it, from its large and invaluable
collection of biography, voyages, travels, history,
and other substantial matter, the popularity which
it eminently deserves. That which seeks to ele-
vate the standard of literary worth, demands encour-
agement ; the floods of cheap and valueless produc-
tions which have deluged this country for past years,
have, by working their own cure, awakened an
appreciation of a better order of literature.

©firistfan ©bserber, ${>UaDel})J)fa. — It is one
of the most interesting and valuable publications of
the day. It is a literary repository, richly and
amply filled with the most readable articles in the
reviews and journals of Europe. Being issued
every week, it keeps pace with the movements of
the world, and exhibits the living, restless spirit of
the age, as developed in its literature, science, com-
merce, politics, and in the various arts of life.

s

NOTICES OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

fflfajette, Bober, T*T. 3£}. — Notwithstanding the
wide range over which the Living Age has run in
its grasp of materials, it still keeps up an unflagging
interest, and richly merits the popularity it has
attained.

35bcninjj CSajette. — In closing our liter-
ary labors for this year there is one publication
which merits a notice ; and all our readers who
have had an opportunity of judging will agree with
us when we say that Litteirs Living Age is worthy
of all praise. We have from time to time acknowl-
edged the receipts of the weekly numbers ; but
such a brief mention conveys no idea to a stranger
of the value of this publication. It not only con-
tains the cream of foreign publications, but the
very essence, the very marrow, of eminent English
literature, and a person who reads it will obtain as
correct an idea of the spirit of the times, both so-
c-ially and politically, as if he became the veriest
book-worm, and possessed a supernatural power
of reading every line that emanates from the press.
It affords us pleasure to hear of the success of
this issue. It is creditable to our citizens that it is
supported by them, and we most sincerely wish
that its proprietor may be the receiver of a golden
harvest, for he is a skilful husbandman, growing
good fruit, from well-eelected stock.

JFreemnn, (Koncortt, jfWs. — We wish the Living
Age could take the place of the corrupting trash
which is poured forth in such unceasing torrents,
and is perverting taste and endangering the princi-
ples of our youth.

N. U. SEfasJjtnfltom'an, Uostott. — Amid the
multitudinous issues that daily come from the press,
which have their brief hour and are laid aside, the
work above announced stands conspicuous as a
notable exception to casual interest or speedy neg-
lect. Like the evergreen of winter, while all
around has withered and perished, its perennial
freshness gladdens and softens the asperities of the
general deartn.

We wish to call the attention of the large class
of young men in our community to the merits of
this work — to point out to them the vast fund of
valuable information which is tendered for almost
the simple asking. We know of no publication in
the whole range of literature which presents such
facilities for the acquisition of knowledge. In its
pages we find the products of the first minds of Eu-
rope and America. The reader can, at will, revel
in the delights of romance, follow the instructions
if the historian, trace the devious ways of national
politics, grasp the discoveries of science, or cull
flowers from the ever-teeming fields of popular
literature. There is no department of human lore
which does not here open its lecture-room — no
teacher of the mysteries of nature that does not
here present his inculcations. It is, therefore, one
of the most valuable compilations of the age, and
should be the text-book of all.

To the thousands of young men in this country
who are coming upon the stage of active usefulness,
whose desire is to possess themselves of a thorough
knowledge of what is transpiring among the nations
of the earth, what publication is more fitted for
their peculiar position 1 There is none. For six
dollars a year, or twelve-and-a-half cents weekly,
can this great boon be procured. How many there
are who, almost daily, foolishly squander more
than the weekly cost of this work, which, if in-

vested in the way we suggest, would insure them
a rare treasure-house of delight, entertainment,
and instruction ! Young men, think of the oppor-
tunity thus offered.

3£Uj)tU)ltcan, W. SSnDjjetoater, $&a.— We are
exceedingly giad to see this most valuable of maga-
zines on our table. What the reviews are to liter-
ature in general, the Living Age is to the reviews
— a selection of the choice bits, the refined essence
of the leading European and American journals.

^Journal, iJrobiDence, It. K. — No periodical is
more welcome than this, which sustains the high
character it has so long enjoyed for the variety and
excellence of its selections. To those who are un-
able to take but a single periodical, LittelVs Living
Age is the best, as it culls the choicest papers on
all subjects, from the leading reviews and maga-
zines of England. It also contains many smaller
articles selected from the newspaper press of the
United States.

f£s.) ©bserber. — We renew our
recommendation of the work to such of our readers
as desire to possess the best literary productions of
our time. The work is published in weekly parts
of 48 large two-column pages, making four vol-
umes, of over 600 pages each, per year. Its con-
tents are principally derived from the periodicals
of England, Scotland, and Ireland. They embrace
those reviews which form the great staple of the
quarterlies — sparkling essays — incidents of adven-
ture in all climes — speculations on passing political
events — notices of, and extracts from, new books —
tales, poetry, witticisms, &c. In short, the selec-
tions are so judiciously made, that the " Living
Age" is adapted to all who desire to keep informed
of the movements of the period — to professional and
business men — and it is also attractive and useful
to women and children. It would be a " continual
feast" for every family, gratifying the mental and
moral appetite ; and one so ample as to ensure the
neglect of much that is bad in taste and vicious in
morals, but which, in this day of cheap publica-
tions, can be guarded against only by furnishing a
sufficient supply of a healthy character. Add to
the foregoing, that the work possesses more than a
temporary interest — that its value is permanent —
that it can be got bound for 50 cents per volume,
and thus the subscriber can make a rich addition
to his library each year.

Datl» ^Tribune, Worcester, i&s. — Of course it
needs no comment from us, for every intelligent
person will concur with us, when we say, that for
a deep and solid reasoning in its articles, a purely
literary and scientific work, it stands in the first
rank of the literary works of the day.

JSjrcelsfor, Wetoburflft, W. 3T. — The Living Age
we have often brought to the notice of our readers ;
and, for their good, we cannot do it too often. It is
conducted upon the plan of Littell's Museum, which
long enjoyed an enviable popularity. It contains
the very cream of the foreign literature which is
worth republication ; and sprinkles that with choice
articles from able native pens. The British reviews
are very expensive ; and, after all, much of their
contents is not adapted to the tastes or wants of
American readers. Litteirs Living Age repub-
hshes the best of the articles from the reviews and
all the British periodicals of lighter cast.
9

NOTICES OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

HonOon (Ct.) Democrat. — This is one
of the most popular, most useful, and most exten-
sively read periodicals of the present day. Unlike
many of the monthlies that are published, and im-
posed upon the community, this work abounds with
useful and interesting- matter, bringing the past as
well as the present age before us in full review,
and bearing rich instruction, in so interesting a
manner, that no one can read without pleasure and
profit. It has received the highest encomiums of
the first men of the age.

ST&e Calendar, ?8artfortr, <£t. — It is what its
name implies, and no one who reads it constantly
can fail to keep himself well informed about both
the thought and the action of this stirring age of
ours. We know from experience how welcome a
visitor it has proved in our family, and how ear-
nestly it has been inquired after whenever it has
failed to make its appearance on its accustomed
day.

W. 3T. (Kajette anO STtmes. — It is copiously
supplied with judicious selections from the first
reviews and periodicals of both the old and the new
world. For a comprehensive summary of the liter-
ature of the day, this publication is without an
equal, and as such it deserves all encouragement.

W. Y. ffiommerctal &obertlser. — The selec-
tions from foreign and domestic periodicals, of
which this work is wholly composed, are discrim-
inatingly made, and in no publication can more
good reading be found in a similar space. Its issue
in weekly numbers, too, we think a decided im-
provement upon the monthly plan of publication.

ana audits' SQonte journal, 7"f. Y.—
In our various notices of periodical literature, we
have spoken less frequently than our sense of jus-
tice prompted, of "LITTELL'S LIVING AGE."
The frequent visits of this admirable selection from
foreign journals, its wise choice of the best articles
and judicious intermixture of American literary
and biographical data, together with its low price,
render it the most valuable and attractive work for
the man of literary taste, political inquiry and
habitual economy, (both of time and money,) now
published in the United States. It is literally the
cream of the English reviews and magazines,
served up with punctuality, and on the fairest im-
aginable terms.

Donlestoum ($)a.) Democrat. — Of all the liter-
ary publications in our country — and they are
almost as numerous as the sands upon the sea-
shore — we consider the Living Age the most valu-
able. It furnishes weekly a vast amount of the
very cream of foreign literature, carefully selected
from sterling foreign publications.

^Temperance Banner, Baltimore, J£tr. — This
standard weekly continues to maintain its position
at the head of the serial publications of this country.
It embraces articles on literature, science, art, mo-
rality, and religion, culled wjth great care and
discreet judgment, from the best fountains of
Europe and America. It is in itself an invaluable
library, combining, in substance, the information
and literature of the English language.

2Tvue Democrat, ClebelanD, <E>J)io. — The very
embodiment of the best spirit of the living litera-

ture of our day. We have books that are books,
and this is one of them. The scholars and ripa
men of our country regard LitteWs Living Age as
a work essential to them, and surely we need not
add that it must be useful to every one who will
read it.

State ffiajette, J8ontjjomer2, &!«.— The
work is unlike any other literary publication in
the country, it being a reprint of all the choice
articles of the foreign periodicals — not of the Quar-
terlies only, but also of the Monthlies, Weeklies
and Dailies, as well as articles of extraordinary
interest from American publications. It furnishes
besides original contributions from able writers as
foreign correspondents.

Mr. Littell has been long connected with our
periodical press, and is extensively known as a
judicious and tasteful caterer to the wants of the
literary community ; and we know of no publica-
tion of a similar character whatever that we con-
sider equal to it in interest and value, and the
privation of which we should esteem so material
a loss.

fSramtnev, 3Loutsbille, Sj. — If we were pro-
hibited from reading more than one periodical, we
should not feel much disposed to complain of the
prohibition, if we were permitted to select Littell's
Living Age. It is composed of the best articles
of the best periodicals ; and is as much superior to
any one of them as the master-piece of the Grecian
artist was to any one of the beautiful women who
furnished each some particular charm for the repre
sentation of perfect beauty. We are delighted
with each number as it comes to us. So highly
have we been pleased with the work that we have
purchased all the back volumes for the use of oui
family.

33anner, (Earrolton, SU.— A work which we
cordially recommend to every family for its healthy
moral tone, its large collection of biography, his-
tory, voyages, and travels; its notices of recent
and passing events ; besides its rich provision for
the imagination. It is a desirable work for all who
wish to keep themselves informed of the progress
of the present age, in its political and moral
bearing.

Bails &Uberttser, UatJ), j!8e.— Each weekly
number contains a large amount of matter, consist-
ing of selections of the most valuable portions of
the whole literature of the age. Those who can
afford only a limited yearly addition to their libra-
ries should not hesitate to subscribe for this work.
It has no embellishments, but its real worth is
greater than that of all the other literary magazines
in the country put together.

Democrat, ffioncorB, W. 2$. —
Each number contains forty-eight pages of the
choicest poetical and prose articles to be found in
the periodicals of Europe and America. The se-
lections are uniformly made with great judgment
and care, making, in our estimation, the most
valuable, as well as the cheapest, magazine in the
United States. Again. — The editor possesses
rare judgment in " sifting the wheat" from the
great mass of current Foreign Literature, and
presenting to the American public only such as
is worthy to work and live in the mind of the
age.

10

NOTICES OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

Uoston ISost --No person can do better, who
wishes to keep cognizant of the literature and grea
events of the day, than to commence 1850 by sub-
scribing for this cheap and valuable work.

Uoston iEbening CKajette. — Always excellent.
We could write a column in its praise.

33oston 3J)ati)ftnHer. — Littell's Living Age is
rightly named, because it gives us, not the mouldy
literature of past ages, but the fresh, vigorous and
healthy productions of the men of to-day.

American ffiafiinet, Boston.— This truly valu-
able publication is ever welcome. The editor is as
one watching the tide of popular reading, and who
thrusts down his hand when something rich and
rare floats along, and makes it a part and parcel of
the " age."

Hell) SSnjjIanOer, Boston. —It bears indubitable
indications of the valued tact and nice discrimina-
tion of its conductor, Mr. Littell. Again. — Need
we again commend this super-excellent work to
our readers ? Not, perhaps, for its necessities ; for
a generous patronage, and the universal commenda-
tion of the press, render such a task superfluous.
But to attract the attention of the young men of
our land to its merits we will gladly speak of it
weekly. There is no work in this country which,
in so convenient a compass, and at so cheap a rate,
furnishes a more varied, judicious or valuable read-
ing to the knowledge-seeking student. Five dol-
lars each to a club of four will secure this treasure
for one year. Again. — It must be gratifying to
the publishers of this work, to notice that selec-
tions from its pages are travelling the round of the
press of this country — a favorable comment on its
popular cast. It has been well said that he who
makes an able extract renders a service equivalent
to that of one who writes a good article — and this
merit is peculiarly that of the conductor of the
Age. Again. — We can with truth endorse a
contemporary, who says this celebrated weekly
holds on its unrivalled course vigorously, bearing
its rich freight of literary wares, gathered from
every civilized region, to the " uttermost parts of
the earth." Our experience has taught us that,
with the Living Age, we have no need of the
famous British Quarterlies, nor of most of the
valuable productions of the British periodical press.
Again. — What do you read, good sir? Science,
history, politics, poetry, or romance? Have the
Age, then, by all means. To be without it, exist-
ence loses much of its delights — the mind half its
enjoyment. We speak " by the book."

SBostou Sfouvnal.— The accumulation of new
/jooks on almost all subjects, has become so rapid
of late, that no man, even by incessant reading
with out, sleep or rest, if possible, could wade
through but a small portion of them. They shower
down upon us from the sky ; they come up from
he mighty deep ; they tumble upon us from the
heights of Parnassus ; they rush upon us as mon-
sters from Domdaniel caverns, and they spread
around us in legions from Cyprian temples. What,
then, shall we read 1 What new work, worth the
precious hours of a fugitive existence, whether on
science, history, poetry or romance, shall we select?
— The impartial Reviews and judicious Criticisms
of the day will answer. But they are also many,
and are becoming voluminous. On this account
the plan and conduct of LITTELL'S LIVING AGE
have met with such general approbation and patron-
age/ It skims the cream of Reviews. It supplies
11

| the wants of a reading community, and like a
Cicerone regulates the taste, and like a guide-board
points out the way, in making discreet selections ;
or in some cases serves to warn us from a waste of
time, in the perusal of a book, however popular
— "A Stranger in Boston."

(ffjjricttan deflector, JSoston. — This sterling
cosmopolite continues to send out its gatherings*
from the standard periodical literature of the old
world and new. It has reached a vigorous man-
hood, and grows wiser and better as it grows older.
The contents are rich and varied. The selections
indicate an excellent taste and good judgment.
The circulation of this periodical keeps on rapidly
increasin.

.Saturtraij Gambler. — The Living Age
is too well known to the American public to need
any eulogium at our hands. The standing and
reputation which it has attained are its best recom
mendation.

Dortlantt (,f&e.) STranscujpt.— A man cannot
be said to live, in his age if he do not keep himself
informed of the course of its current of thought
and action. And we verily believe that he can do
this in no way so readily and so cheaply as by sub-
scribing for the Living Age. This publication is
no longer an experiment ; it is a fixed fact. And
as a fact, it is doing more for the spread of know -
edge among the people, than most men imagine.
It gives us all that is worth knowing in the foreign
quarterlies and monthlies, — which are themselves
beyond the reach of the mass of the people, — and
the most valuable of the many contributions to our
own current literature. Much of the space in the
number before us is devoted to articles of Ameri-
can origin, and we think this feature of the Living
Age will commend it still more to our people. We
say to all who would cultivate an acquaintance with
the great minds of the old and the new worlds,
subscribe for the Living Age.

fflfajette, 25ast STtjomaston, |&e.— It is uni-
"ormly filled with a variety of articles selected from
the leading European monthlies, and there is no
;aste, however various or exacting, that will fail to
ind in each number, at least one article fully repay-
'ng the cost of the whole, while, on the other hand,
it never contains anything which can be styled
objectionable. We could name a hundred articles
scattered through the last year's series, which havo
afforded us much interest and satisfaction, and, we
lope, at the same time, an equal share of profit.
[t is always rich in good things, arid we wish it
jreat and continued prosperity.

democrat, ^erefiitl) 3Sri&flf, W. ?§.— This
work is acknowledged to be the freshest, most
refined, and best literary work published, while its
heapness places it within the reach of all.

irrasburn; (Vt.) (Sajette. — Preeminent among
weekly publications in this country, stands Littell's
living Age. The amount of matter in each num-
)er is nearly equal to that contained in the foreign
Juarterlies, consisting of selections from all the
Reviews, domestic and foreign, as well as from the
first newspapers in either hemispheres. For six
dollars a year, one can really get, in this publica-
ion, the spirit of the age, literary and political.

CSreen i&otiritatn JFmman, jRflontpeUer, Ut.
— Incomparably the best of the kind published in
America, it still fully holds its .own in the varied
nterest and richness of its contents.

NOTICES OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

Barnstable (J8s.) patriot. — This republica-
tion is one of the best, if not the very best, reprint of
foreign literature which is offered to the American
public. The pages of this valuable magazine are
filled with judicious selections taken chiefly from
the oldest, most popular and talented of the foreign
periodicals : they are enriched also with selections
from American authors and miscellaneous publica-
tions, which give to them much spirit and variety.
It is a synopsis of the best productions of many of
the finest transatlantic writers of the day, and, as
representing the present expression and progress
of European and American literature, it is a com-
pilation of more than ordinary or transient merit.

of Commerce, Weto Yorfc Cittj. —
Its contents consist for the most part of articles
extracted from the foreign periodicals of the day ;
but its selections, instead of being confined exclu-
sively to the elaborate essays of Quarterly Reviews,
embrace within their range the lighter literature of
the " Monthlies/' and even of the most valuable
weekly newspapers. Occasionally, too, we are
pleased to notice extracts from the columns of lead-
ing American papers, whose editorials are fre-
quently worthy of a more permanent existence,
than can be secured to them by the issues of an
ephemeral press.- An agreeable variety is thus
given to the pages of Littell ; and hence it becomes
in reality, what its name purports, a correct
daguerreotype of the living age. It is, at once,
"popular" in character, and, at the same time,
well adapted " to raise the standard of public
taste."

' (17t.) 35aale.— In looking over its
pages, one can hardly repress a feeling of amaze-
ment at the amount, variety and richness of its con-
tents. It is confined to no particular theme, and is
bound to the maintenance of no exclusive party,
sect, or school of philosophy. The selections are
made and arranged with great discrimination ; so
happily blending the grave and the gay, that the
reader, no matter what his taste, so it be cultivated,
will find much to commend. It contains weekly
copious extracts from the standard foreign reviews,
magazines and newspapers, culled with rare taste
and judgment by the industrious editor, thus present-
ing, in a condensed form, much highly interesting
and valuable information, to which many might
otherwise be denied access. Philosophy, History,
Biography, Fiction, and Poetry, each, in turn, claim
the attention of the delighted reader. We know
of no periodical published in this country, possess-
ing so many attractions for an intelligent, educated
family.

(lit.) JB^lt.—LittelVs Living
Age has been received, and read with much inter-
est and profit to ourselves.'* It is truly a valuable
work. Much has been said in praise of this
periodical, and we can assure those who are not
familiar with it, that report has not exaggerated its
merits.

O^t.) journal. — There is probably
no one periodical publication in the world, that
contains so rich', extensive, and valuable a variety
of contributions.

American Courier, tyljilz. — We really think,
if " our million" knew the peculiar excellence
of " LittelVs Living Age," its terms, &c., they
woold render an additional printing machine neces-
sary to supply the demand.
12

Aunt's iHercljants' iHasajint.— Mr. LittelJ
the editor and proprietor of this work, may be>
regarded as the pioneer in re-producing in these
United States the choicest literature of England.
He started nearly, if not quite, a quarter of a cen-
tury ago, the first journal of foreign literature ;
and if his taste, zeal, and industry had been prop-
erly appreciated, he would (if it were possible
for one of his tireless energy and activity) have
retired, ere this, on a well and honestly earned for-
tune. A cotemporary, C. Edwards Lester, Esq.,
the editor of the " Gallery of Illustrious Ameri-
cans," in his " Fly-Leaf of Art and Criticism,''
pays a high but well merited tribute to Mr. Littell
and his " Living Age," which we take great pleas-
ure in transferring to the pages of the Merchants'
Magazine, with our unhesitating assent to the just-
ness of our cotemporary's criticism : —

" LITTELL'S LIVING AGE. — This best of all
the Eclectics has nearly reached its three hun-
dreth number, and from week to week its appear-
ance is looked for with interest by more readers of
taste and intellectual culture than any other heb-
dominal in the country. Mr. Littell was the foun-
der of this school of publications. His Museum of
foreign Literature was for twenty years the chief
medium through which the periodical literature of
Europe was diffused through America. The Liv-
ing Age has existed about six years, and during
that period it has gained a wider circulation, and
become a far more valuable work. It exceeds all
similar publications, in being a weekly, in the liv-
ing and electric spirit of its articles, in their
immense volume and variety, and in the punctu-
ality of its appearance. If an extraordinary arti-
cle comes out in Blackwood, or any of the great
reviews, his readers are sure to be among the first
to get it. Any number of the Living Age is relia-
ble reading to slip into the pocket for a leisure
evening, a steamboat, or a railway car, and if there
has been a change in it, it has steadily been grow-
ing better from the beginning. The twenty-two
bound volumes of this work contain more LITERA-
TURE than has ever been crowded into the same
space, and as a reference book, or one for family
reading, make up a richer, racier, and a more
varied library than can be had for the same expense
in any form."

33anjjor (ifce.) Bemocrat.— This charming
and ever popular weekly periodical, makes its
appearance regularly ; and keeps up its character
with unabated impartiality and taste. We cannot
too warmly press this excellent serial upon the con-
sideration of every admirer of solid and instructive
reading.

3SatJ) (jffte.) Bads &pberttser.— Littell's Liv-
ing Age comes to us with unvarying regularity.
It contains about all that is worthy of preservation
in the reviews and literary publications of the day.
We repeat what we have before said, that in Teal
worth it is of more value than all the other maga-
zines in the country.

Wetoport (3&. £.) StDberttser.— It contains a
variety of exceedingly entertaining 'matter, which
is as diversified as one could wish. We are con-
stantly alluding to this valuable work, as contain-
ing the best selections from the English and Ameri-
can periodicals, and are anxious to see it in the
tands of all our readers.