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Title: The Romance of Natural History, Second Series
Author: Philip Henry Gosse
Release Date: June 13, 2010 [EBook #32800]
Language: English
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THE ROMANCE
OF
NATURAL HISTORY.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY,
PAUL'S WORK.
[Illustration: FASCINATION.
_Front._]
THE ROMANCE
OF
NATURAL HISTORY.
by
Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S.
Second Series.
LONDON:
JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
M.DCCC.LXI.
CONTENTS.
I. THE EXTINCT.
PAGE
Death of Species -- Some Died in Early Historic Ages -- Some Dying Now
-- Changes of Land and Water -- Tertiary State of Europe -- Dinothere of
Germany -- Sivathere of India -- Gigantic Tortoise -- Pachyderms of
Siberia -- Rhinoceros -- Mammoth -- Mastodon of America -- Great
Quadrupeds of South America -- Sloths -- Habits of Mylodon -- Macrauchen
-- Toxodon -- Ancient Australia and its Colossal Birds -- Ancient
Britain -- Its Flora and Fauna -- Irish Elk -- Carnivores -- Chronology
of the Tertiary Era -- Contemporaneous Existence of Man with the Fossil
Fauna -- Gigantic Tortoise -- Condition of Siberian Pachyderms --
Discovery of the Remains -- Contemporary Fauna of Britain -- Chinese and
Siberian Traditions -- Indian Traditions of the Mastodon -- State of its
Remains -- Its Food -- Comparative Lateness of Geologic Processes in
America -- Possibility that the Mastodon was a Beast of Burden -- Darwin
on the South American Sloths -- Freshness of their Remains --
Synchronism with Existing Creatures -- Birds of New Zealand -- Maori
Tales -- Evidence of Recent Existence -- Story of an English Seaman --
Examination of its Truth -- Fossil Eggs -- Comparison of Dimensions --
Larger Eggs in Madagascar -- Æpyornis -- Its Present Existence Possible
-- Discovery of the Notornis -- Tertiary Britain -- Fossil Man -- Worked
Flints -- Associated with Fossil Bones -- Species -- Age of Man --
Alluvium of the Nile -- Conclusions from it Delusive -- Rates of
Geologic Changes Variable -- Examples -- Evidence of Contemporaneity of
Man with the Tertiary Fauna -- Irish Elk -- State of its Remains --
Traditionary and Documentary Evidence of its Recent Existence --
Slaughtered by Man -- Proof of this Fact -- Great Accumulation of Skulls
at Lough Gûr -- Weapons found with Elk Relics -- Proofs of its having
been Cooked -- Manner of Hunting the Elk -- Ancient Irish Poem on
Animals -- No Allusion to the Elk in it -- This Explained -- Notices of
Early Oxen -- Their Fossil Relics -- Cæsar's Account of the Urus -- Wild
Oxen in Ancient Greece and Western Asia -- Guy of Warwick and the Dun
Cow -- The Turnbulls -- The Urus Fossil in Britain -- Vast Size of
Fossil Oxen -- Scanian Fossil Ox bearing a Spear-wound -- Other Ancient
Oxen -- European Bison -- British Bears -- Period of their Extinction --
Extinction of the Wolf -- Beaver Extinct in Britain -- Almost Extinct in
Europe -- Dodo -- Accounts of Voyagers -- Seen in London -- Museum
Relics -- Paintings -- Stelleria -- Cheiromys -- Moho -- Kaureke --
Manu-mea -- Nestor of Norfolk Island -- Great Auk -- Its Recent
Abundance -- Catalogue of Specimens and Eggs in Cabinets -- Falkland Fox
-- Musk Ox -- Hand-tree of Mexico -- Attempt to Estimate the Rate of
Species-extinction -- Perhaps One a Year -- Question of Continuous
Creation of Species -- Causes of Extinction -- Thoughts of Owen and
Darwin -- Geographic Distribution an Important Element -- Fauna Peculiar
to Islands -- Red Grouse -- Precariousness of its Existence, 1
II. THE MARVELLOUS.
Vulgar Love of Marvels -- False Causes -- Counter Tendency of Science --
Blood-Showers -- Traced to Butterfly-discharges -- Worms in Horse Pond
-- Crimson Snow -- Discharges of Birds -- Real Red Rain -- Waters turned
to Blood -- Oscillatoria -- Infusoria -- "Raining Cats and Dogs" --
Snail-showers -- Frog-showers -- At Portobello -- At Leeds -- On the
Continent -- Fish-showers -- The Aberdare Shower -- Explanations and
Criticisms -- Veritable Fish-showers in South America -- In India -- In
Ceylon -- Torpidity of Fishes in Mud -- Lepidosiren -- Its Structure --
Amphibious Fishes -- Climbing Perch -- Salarias of Ceylon -- Provisional
Structure, 96
III. MERMAIDS.
The Oannes of Berosus -- Assyrian Representations of Mermen -- Dagon and
Atergatis -- Universal Belief in Mermaids -- Opinion of Swainson --
Sirens in Dongola -- Museum Specimens -- Japanese Ingenuity -- Accounts
of Living Specimens -- Assumed to be Cow-whales -- Indian Accounts --
Scandinavian Myths -- Mermaids in Shetland -- A Love Story -- Cavern in
Skye -- Veritable Narratives -- Hudson's Report -- Steller's Sea-ape --
Rencontre of Weddell's Seaman -- Merman seen at Landscrone -- Mermaid
Captured by Six Shetlandmen -- Comments on the Story -- Critical
Examination of it, 125
IV. THE SELF-IMMURED.
Toads Found in Wood and Stone -- Difficulties -- Bell's Caution --
Current Explanations -- Mr Bartlett's Toad in Fir-tree -- His Letter in
Reply -- Mr Bree's Toad in Sandstone -- Mr Peacock's Toad in Lias --
Toad in Tamarind-wood in India -- Comments on the Report -- Toad in
Flint at Blois -- Toad in Iron Ore -- _Audi alteram partem_ -- Mr
Plant's Disappointment -- Seven Frogs in Nodules of Limestone -- Toad
Immured in Old Wall -- Frog in Freestone -- Toads deep in Stiff Clay --
Experiments -- Dr Buckland Immures Toads in Oolitic Limestone and
Sandstone -- Results -- Dr Buckland's Conclusions -- Toads Inclosed in
Plaster of Paris -- Critical Examination of the Experiments --
Objections to the Conclusions -- Evidence rather in Favour of Common
Belief -- Toad Sixteen Years in Closed-in Wall -- Toad in Mortar under a
Horse-block -- Indefinite Torpidity of Wasps -- Mr Bartlett Finds a Bat
in a Vault Closed for Twenty Years -- Mr Smith Finds a Bat in a Vault
Closed for One Hundred and Six Years, 146
V. HYBERNATION OF SWALLOWS.
The Question -- Popular Belief -- Scientific Statements of Swallows'
Torpidity and Submersion -- Achard's Statement -- White's Account --
Cases given by Bishop Stanley -- Supposed Torpidity of American Swift --
Hybernating Corn-crakes -- Barrington's Reports of Torpid Swallows --
Curator Wall's Story -- Fitton's Story -- Swallows in Britain during
Winter -- Cases recorded by White -- Montagu -- Yarrell -- C. Bree --
Bell -- Hewitson -- Harcourt -- Rodd -- Hadfield -- W. Bree -- Johnston
-- Gurney -- Examination of the Evidence -- Conclusion in Favour of
Torpidity, 191
VI. THE CRESTED AND WATTLED SNAKE.
Seba's Museum -- His "Thesaurus" -- Figures of Curious Serpents -- What
could they have been? -- Proofs that they were Ophidian, not Piscine --
Reports of Wonderful Serpent in Jamaica -- Singular Character of its
Habitat -- Geological and Botanical Features -- Locale of Three-fingered
Jack -- Crested Snake Killed here -- Negro Stories of its Voice -- Heard
of in Hayti -- Author's Efforts to obtain a Specimen -- Occurrence of
Two Specimens, 211
VII. THE DOUBTFUL.
Viper Swallowing her Young -- Conflicting Statements -- Physiologically
not Impossible -- Reports of Witnesses -- Mr Percival's Account -- Mr
Wolley's Corroboration -- Mr Bond's Testimony -- Case of the Rattlesnake
-- Seen by Palisot de Beauvois -- Case of the Common Lizard -- Comments
on the Evidence.
Madame Merian -- Her Truth Impeached -- Her Story of the Lantern-fly --
Denials of its Luminosity by Entomologists -- Confirmation of it by
Lacordaire -- By Spinola -- By Wesmael -- English Insects only
Occasionally Luminous -- Mole-cricket -- The Cause of _ignis fatuus_ --
Crane-fly -- Luminous Caterpillars -- Perhaps a Disease.
Madame Merian again Arraigned -- Her Account of Spiders Preying on
Humming-birds -- Mr MacLeay's Denial and Proof of the Negative --
Comment on his Evidence -- Langsdorff's Evidence -- Ceylon Spiders --
Sir E. Tennent's Criticisms -- Collateral Evidence for the Affirmative
-- Strong Webs of _Nephila_ -- The Solfuga of India -- Account of its
Habits -- Attacks and Overcomes Small Birds -- Captain Sherwill Saw a
Spider Eating a Bird in India -- Moreau de Jonnès' Direct Confirmation
of Merian -- Mr H. Bates's Conclusive Testimony, 220
VIII. FASCINATION.
Power Attributed to Serpents of Paralysing their Prey -- Dr Bird's Story
of Black Snake -- Rattlesnake and Squirrel -- Cobra and Lizard --
African Snake and Mouse -- Snake and Frog -- Habits of the Boomslange --
Snake and Shrike -- Snake and Mouse -- Dr Evans's Observations on
Serpents at the Zoological Gardens -- Ringed Snake and Hedge Sparrow --
Snake and Robin -- Indian Serpent and Eel -- Attempted Explanations --
Mr Martin's Observations -- Barton Attributes the Phenomena to Maternal
Love -- Explanation Inadequate -- The Power Exercised by Other Animals
-- Lizard and Butterfly -- Scorpion and Fly -- Stoats and Hares -- Foxes
and Pullets -- Eagle and Rabbit -- Attractive Power of Fire --
Entomologist's Bull's-eye Lamp -- Yard-fire in Alabama -- Insects come
to the Fire -- Titmouse around a Gas-lamp -- Bell Rock Lighthouse
visited by Herring-gull -- Fire Fascinates Toads in Africa, 242
IX. SERPENT-CHARMING.
Revulsion Inspired by the Serpent -- Persons Professing Immunity against
Venomous Serpents -- Scriptural Allusions -- The Ancient Psylli and
Marsi -- Babylonian Magician -- Atyr -- Immunity Distinct from
Serpent-charming -- Hexagon the Ambassador -- Posterity of Psylli in
Sennaar -- Bruce's Curious Account -- Various Plants Antidotic to
Serpent-venom -- Experiments on _Simaba Cedron_ -- Peruvian Serpents and
Remedies -- Various South American Antidotes -- Vejuco of Venezuela --
Grass of Dahomey -- Immunity of Mangouste -- Anecdotes -- Of Hedgehog --
Bruce's Account of the Cerastes -- Hasselquist's Observations -- Psyllic
Woman -- Power of Spittle -- Influence of Music on Serpents --
Proceedings of Egyptian Charmers -- Rattlesnake Charmed by a Flute --
Cobra of India Attracted by Music -- Occasional Failures and Fatalities
-- Anecdotes -- Comments -- Psylli in London -- Are the Poison-fangs
Extracted? -- Power of Snake-stones -- Napier's and Tennent's Accounts
-- Faraday's Analysis -- Plant-remedies, 263
X. BEAUTY.
Delight in Beauty -- Divine Appreciation of it -- Magnificent Flower in
a Thicket -- Beauty of Deer -- Pet Fawn -- Eye of Gazelle -- Spotted Fur
-- Zebra-stripes -- Birds -- Spoonbills on the Amazon -- Carolina
Parakeet -- Cock of the Rock -- Soft blending in the Goatsuckers --
Resplendent Trogon -- Metallic Colours -- Rifle-bird -- Plume-birds --
Iridescent Hues -- Sun-birds -- Humming-birds -- Mexican Names --
Jamaican Humming-birds -- Mango -- Long-tail -- Cause of changeable
Lustre -- Angle of Light -- Other Examples -- Region of the Amazon and
Rio Negro -- Birds -- Fiery Topaz Humming-bird -- Cerro of Potosi --
Night-blowing Cactus -- Bar-tail Comet -- Pheasant tribe -- Chinese
Pheasants -- Fire-back of Java -- Argus of Malacca -- Impeyan of India
-- Polyprectons -- Peacock -- Wild Peacock-shooting -- Paradise-birds --
Emerald -- His Vanity in Dress -- Splendour of Insects -- Metallic
Beetles -- Soft Refulgence -- Gem-scales -- Butterflies -- Changes of
Hue -- Opalescence -- Ray on the "_Cui bono?_" -- Smith on South
American Butterflies -- Splendour of Spiders -- in Jamaica -- in Borneo
-- Tortoise-beetles -- Beauty of Plants -- Mosses -- Ferns -- Palms --
Grasses -- Bamboo -- in Jamaica -- in Madagascar -- Plantains -- Scene
in Tahiti -- Beauty exceeds our Power of Imbibing it -- Flowers --
Orchideæ -- Sobralia -- Cypripedium -- Anæctochilus -- Dendrobium --
Huntleya -- Scene in Guiana -- Death of Reiss -- Rhododendrons of
Himalayas -- of Borneo -- Lightning-tree of Madagascar -- Flamboyant --
Barbadoes Pride -- Burmese tree -- Le Bois Immortel -- Scene in Tartary
-- Microscopic Beauties of London Pride, 302
XI. PARASITES.
Fleas on fleas _ad infinitum_ -- Intestinal Worms -- Economy of
Creation -- Epiphyte Vegetation -- Life in a Sea-weed -- Orchids in the
Tropics -- Parasitic Fig-trees -- Lianes -- in Ceylon -- Parasitism in
Insects -- Ichneumons -- Kirby's Discovery of Stylops -- Economy --
Oil-beetle -- Medusa and Shrimp -- Medusa parasitic on Medusa -- Fish in
Stomach of Star-fish -- Crab and Sponge -- Hermit Crab and Polype --
Parasites in Corals -- Ostrich parasitic on Ostrich -- Cuckoo and Cowpen
birds -- Veneration of Small Birds for Cuckoo -- Slavery among Ants --
Nigger-hunting, 359
APPENDIX.
Sea-serpent -- Additional Testimonies to its Existence -- Statement of
Consul Grattan -- Communication from Mr Stephen Cave, 387
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE PAGE
I. FASCINATION (_Frontispiece_).
II. ENCOUNTER WITH A MOA, 36
III. SPEARING THE ANCIENT ELK, 56
IV. THE CLIMBING PERCH, 122
V. TOAD IN A HOLE, 158
VI. BIRD-EATING SPIDER, 240
VII. SNAKE-CHARMING, 278
VIII. ANTELOPES, 304
IX. PLUME-BIRD, 310
X. PEACOCK-SHOOTING, 326
THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY.
I.
THE EXTINCT.
If it is a scene of painful interest, as surely it is to a
well-constituted mind, to stand by and watch the death-struggles of one
of the nobler brutes,--a dog or an elephant, for example,--to mark the
failing strength, the convulsive throes, the appealing looks, the sobs
and sighs, the rattling breath, the glazing eye, the stiffening
limbs--how much more exciting is the interest with which we watch the
passing away of a dying species. For species have their appointed
periods as well as individuals: viewed in the infinite mind of GOD, the
Creator, from the standpoint of eternity, each form, each race, had its
proper duration assigned to it--a duration which, doubtless, varied in
the different species as greatly as that assigned to the life of one
individual animal differs from that assigned to the life of another. As
the elephant or the eagle may survive for centuries, while the horse and
the dog scarcely reach to twenty years, and multitudes of insects are
born and die within a few weeks, so one species may have assigned to
its life, for aught I know, a hundred thousand years as its normal
period, and another not more than a thousand. If creation was, with
respect to the species, what I have elsewhere proved it was with respect
to the individual,[1]--a violent irruption into the cycle of life--then
we may well conceive this to have taken place at very varying relative
periods in the life-history of the different species;--that is to say,
that at a given date, (viz., that of creation) one species might be just
completing, _ideally_, its allotted course, another just commencing, and
a third attaining its meridian.
Certain it is, that not a few species of animals have died during the
present constitution of things. Races, which we know on indubitable
evidence to have existed during the dominion of man, have died out, have
become extinct, so that not a single individual survives. The entire
totality of individuals which constituted the species, have, in these
cases, ceased to be. Some of these seem to have died at a very early era
of human history; but others at a comparatively recent period, and some
even within our own times. Even within the last twenty years several
animals have been taken, of which it is highly probable that not a
single representative remains on the earth; while there are others yet
again, which we know to be reduced to a paucity so extreme, that their
extinction can scarcely be delayed more than a few years at most. Thus
we may consider ourselves as standing by the dying-beds of these
creatures, with the consciousness that we shall soon see them no more;
that the sentence is gone forth against them; that their sands are
running to the last grains, and that no effort of ours can materially
prolong their existence. The facts from which these conclusions are
drawn are highly curious, and I shall endeavour to lay them, with as
much brevity as they will allow, before my readers.
On that prochronic hypothesis, by which alone, as I conceive, the facts
revealed by geological investigation can be reconciled with the unerring
statements of Scripture,--every word of which is truth, the truth of a
"God that cannot lie,"--we may assume the actual creation of this earth
to have taken place at that period which is geologically known as the
later Tertiary Era, or thereabout. When, on the third day, "the waters
under the heaven were gathered together into one place, and the dry land
appeared," it is not necessary to suppose that the form assumed by the
emerging land was immediately that which it now has; we may, on the
other hand, I think, assume as likely, that successive or continuous
changes of elevation followed, which have been protracted, perhaps
constantly decreasing in extent and force, to the present hour.[2]
Perhaps between the six days' work of Creation and the Noachic Flood,
Europe became much altered in outline, and in elevation. It may have
been, at first, a great archipelago, agreeing with the epithet by which
it is designated in early Scripture, "the Isles,"[3] and by which it
was subsequently known for ages. The Pyrenees, the Alps, and the
Apennines, already emerged, were slowly uniting, and the Carpathians,
the Balkan, the Taurus, and the Caucasus, were uprearing, while the vast
regions to the north were still an expanse of open sea. England was
probably united with the newly-formed European continent, and embraced
Ireland in one great mass of unbroken land, which stretched far away
into the Atlantic. Volcanoes were active in the north of Ireland, and in
the west of Scotland, pouring forth those floods of fiery lava which
have cooled into the columnar forms seen at the Giant's Causeway and the
Cave of Fingal. Slowly the north of Europe emerged, and the great
south-west expanse of Britain sank beneath the sea, leaving, it may be,
the large island of Atlantis in mid-ocean, to be submerged by a later
catastrophe.
Probably changes very similar were coevally taking place in Asia and
North America, while the vast flat alluvial regions of South America
were, perhaps, even still more recently formed, and a great Pacific
continent was in course of subsidence, of which Australasia and
Polynesia are the existing remains.
Such changes of elevation, and of the continuity of land, must effect
considerable alterations of climate; and, therefore, it is not
surprising to know that, in earliest ages, animals and plants flourished
in regions to which they would now be altogether unfitted, and that
many races existed then which have since died out; for geological and
climatal modifications are among the most easily conceivable causes of
the decease of species.
In the great swamps of emerging Germany, and in the, as yet, only
half-drained valleys of Switzerland, lurked then the heavy Dinothere.
Huger than the hugest elephant, he carried an enormous body of twenty
feet in length, vast and barrel-like, which even his columnar limbs of
ten feet long scarcely sufficed to raise from the ground. His uncouth
head, elephantine in shape, was furnished with a short proboscis; and
two tusks, short and strong, projected from the lower jaw, not curving
upward, as in the elephant, but downward, as in the walrus. In the
teeming marshes lurked this ungainly beast, half immersed, digging out
with his mighty pickaxe-tusks the succulent roots that permeated the
soft soil, which his sensitive trunk picked up, and conveyed to his
mouth.
On the southern slopes of the slowly-rising Himalayas, already clothed
with forests of teak, and palm, and bamboo, revelled the Sivathere,
another heavy creature, of the bulk of a rhinoceros, and therefore not
more than half equalling the German colossus. He too was a strange
subject. With a proportionally enormous head, in form somewhat between
that of the elephant and of the rhinoceros, minute sunken piggish eyes,
and a short proboscis like that of the tapir, he carried two pairs of
dissimilar horns. On the forehead were placed one pair, seated upon bony
cores, not unlike those of our short-horn oxen. Behind these there rose
another pair, large and massive, which were palmated and branching,
like those of the fallow-deer, but on a gigantic scale. What sort of a
body, and what kind of limbs, furnished the complement of this
curiously-compound head, we do not exactly know; but surely it must have
been a very remarkable form, as it browsed quietly and blamelessly,
among the luxuriant shrubs of those sun-facing slopes.
In the same regions a land Tortoise of enormous bulk, far vaster than
the vastest of now existing species, to which that ponderous one which
will march merrily away with a ton weight on its back, is a mere pigmy,
shook the earth with its waddle, and the forests with its hoarse
bellowing. Broad roads, like our highways, were beaten by it through the
jungle, along which it periodically travelled to the cool springs,
leisurely sauntering, and tarrying to munch the fleshy gourds and
cactuses that bordered its self-made track.
The plains of Siberia, stretching away towards the Arctic Ocean,
sheltered countless hosts of huge pachydermatous quadrupeds. A species
of Rhinoceros, not less bulky than those of the present age, roamed to
the very verge of the Icy Sea; its hide, tough and leathery, was
destitute of folds, but was clothed with tufts of rigid gray hair,--an
ornament which is denied to our existing degenerates. Two horns, the
front one of unusual massiveness and length, were seated, as in several
of the African kinds, one behind the other, and were wielded by a head
of great strength and development.
More remarkable still was that great hairy Elephant, called the
Mammoth, which appears to have swarmed in those cold plains by myriads.
Of equal dimensions to the Indian species of the present age, this
denizen of the north had far more enormous curving tusks, and instead of
the naked hide of those we are familiar with, his body was encased in
black hair, with a thick under stratum of red curled wool, and bore a
long mane on the ridge of the neck.
There was, at the same time, a quadruped, nearly allied to the
elephants, but differing from them in some technical characters. With a
body equally bulky, but considerably longer, it had shorter limbs, a
broader head, small tusks in the lower, as well as large curving ones in
the upper jaw, and probably a trunk intermediate between the elephant's
and the tapir's. Truly cosmopolite as this great Mastodon was, for we
dig up his bones from all parts of the world, he had his head-quarters
in North America, where, from his dimensions and his numbers, he must
have formed a very characteristic feature of the primeval swamps and
forests. There, with his tusks, he grubbed up the young trees, whose
juicy roots he ground down with his great mammillary molar teeth, or
chewed up to a pulp the sapwood of the recent branches and spicy twigs.
And ever and anon he would resort to the broad saline marshes,--the
"Licks," as they are now called,--to lick up the crystallised salt on
their margins, so grateful to all herbivorous quadrupeds. Here, in his
eagerness to gratify his palate with the pungent condiment, he would
press farther and farther into the treacherous quagmire, till he began
to sink, and then, in his terror, he would plunge and flounder, getting
more and more deeply bemired, till at length he could struggle no more,
and the bog would close over him, and he would be no more seen till some
spectacled geologist of this nineteenth century, note-book in hand,
would go and dig up his remains, marvelling at the freshness with which
they had been preserved in the antiseptic peat.
But let us look at South America, where, as the great back-bone chain of
the Andes is being elevated out of the sea, the torrents and cataracts
are pouring down from its sides immense quantities of crumbled rock and
pasty mud, which, deposited upon the vast tabular field, brought by the
upheaving just to the level of the sea, forms that grand alluvial plain
unequalled on the face of the globe for extent, which is clothed with
the mighty forests of Guiana and Brazil, or with the tall grass and
thistles of the Pampas. The torrents still fall; and, meandering through
this glorious plain, unite and form the most majestic of rivers, ever
depositing the rich alluvium, and thus sensibly augmenting, to this day,
the breadth of their noble continent, and their own length.
Strange creatures riot here in these primal ages. The young land, hot
and moist,--moist with the unevaporated water of the depositing rivers,
and hot with the influence of the submarine volcano which is lifting it,
as well as with the beams of the tropical sun,--brings forth from its
steaming bosom, the most gigantic trees in the most profuse luxuriance.
And animal life teems too, in this riant vegetation. Millions of
insects,--ants, and termites, and beetles,--are busy at work upon the
trunks of the great trees, eating them down, and swarming in their
immense populous nests, beyond all imaginings. Surely they will soon eat
up the entire forest, dense and rapid as it grows, and there will be
nothing left but cities of insects. No fear! See those great waddling
beasts[4] with stout short legs, and enormous hoof-like claws so bent
inward that the creatures are obliged to walk on the edge of their
paws,--they are equally busy with the insects, tearing apart with their
powerful claws the earthy nests as fast as they are built, and devouring
the makers themselves by wholesale. Here is a wonderful creature, a vast
armadillo, with a body as big as a rhinoceros, covered with a convex
oval shield, formed of hexagonal plates accurately fitted to each other.
See how he approaches a fallen tree, which his unerring instinct tells
him is perforated through and through, and filled with the swarming
millions of ants; with his powerful jaws he munches up the entire mass;
the thin and papery partitions of the dusty wood are ground to powder,
and the ants are licked in and chewed into a black pulp between those
curious cylinders of teeth.
But lo! here are mightier creatures yet! See the vast Mylodon, the
Scelidothere, and the still more colossal Megathere. Ponderous giants
these! The very forests seem to tremble under their stately stride.
Their immense bulk preponderates behind, terminating in a tail of
wonderful thickness and solidity: the head is mean and awakens no
terror; the eye lacks lustre and threatens no violence, though the whole
form betokens vast power, and the stout limbs are terminated by the same
stout, inbent, sharp hoof-claws. One of them approaches that
wide-spreading locust-tree; he gazes up at the huge mud-brown structures
that resemble hogsheads affixed to the forks of the branches, and he
knows that the luscious termites are filling them to overflowing. His
lips water at the tempting sight; have them he must. But how? that heavy
sternpost of his was never made for climbing; yet see! he rears himself
up against the tree; is he about to essay the scaling? Not he: he knows
his powers better. He gives it one embrace; one strong hug; as if to
test its thickness and hold upon the earth. Now he is digging away
below, scooping out the soft soil from between the roots,--and it is
marvellous to note how rapidly he lays them bare with those great
shovel-like claws of his. Now he rears himself again; straddles wide on
his hind feet, fixing the mighty claws deep in the ground; plants
himself firmly on his huge tail, as on the third foot of a tripod, and
once more grasps the tree. The enormous hind quarters, the limbs and the
loins, the broad pelvis, the thick spinal cord supplying abundant
nervous energy to the swelling muscles, inserted in the ridged and
keeled bones, all come into play, as a _point d'appui_ for the Herculean
effort. "And now conceive the massive frame of the Megathere convulsed
with the mighty wrestling, every vibrating fibre reacting upon its bony
attachment with the force of a hundred giants: extraordinary must be the
strength and proportions of the tree, if, when rocked to and fro, to
right and left, in such an embrace, it can long withstand the efforts of
its assailant."[5] It yields; the roots fly up; the earth is scattered
wide upon the surrounding foliage; the tree comes down with a thundering
crash, cracking and snapping the great boughs like glass; the frightened
insects swarm out at every orifice; but the huge beast is in upon them;
with his sharp hoofs he tears apart the crusty walls of the earth-nests,
and licks out their living contents, fat pupæ, eggs and all, rolling
down the sweet morsels, half sucking, half chewing, with a delighted
gusto that repays him for all his mighty toil.
While the heavy giant is absorbed in his juicy breakfast, see, there
lounges along his neighbour, the Macrauchen. Equally massive, equally
heavy, equally vast, equally peaceful, the stranger resembles a huge
rhinoceros elevated on much loftier limbs; but his most remarkable
feature is an enormously long neck, like that of the camel, but carried
to the altitude of that of the giraffe. Thus he thrusts his great muzzle
into the very centre of the leafy trees, and gathering with his
prehensile and flexible lip the succulent twigs and foliage, he too
finds abundance of food for his immense body, in the teeming vegetation,
without intruding upon the supply of his fellows.
And what enormous mass is suddenly thrust up out of the quiet water of
yonder igaripé? A hoarse, hollow grunt, as it comes up, tells us that
it is alive, and now we discern that it is the head of an animal--the
Toxodon. Half hidden as it is under the shadow of the fan-palms, and the
broad, arrowy leaves of the great arums that grow out of the lake, we
see the little piggish eyes, set far up in the great head, and wide
apart, peeping with a curious union of stupidity and shrewdness; the
immense muzzle and lips; the broad cheeks armed with stiff projecting
bristles; and, as the creature opens its cavernous mouth to seize a
floating gourd, an extraordinary array of incurving teeth, strangely
bowed so as to make a series of arches of immense power. Now, with his
strong front teeth, he tears up the great fleshy arum-roots from the
clay of the bank, and grinds them to pulp; and now, with another grunt,
the vast bristly head sinks beneath the water, and we see it no more.
Hundreds of other creatures are straying around,--sloths, bats, and
monkeys, and birds of gay plumage, on the trees; ant-eaters and cavies,
lizards and snakes, on the ground; butterflies and humming-birds
hovering in the air; tapirs and turtles and crocodiles in the
waters;--but these are matters of course:--we are only thinking of such
as have passed away and left no descendants to perpetuate their forms to
our own times.
Away to the great Austral land--in our day minished to the insular
Australia and New Zealand and a few satellite isles--but then, in the
morning of creation, possibly stretching far to the north and on either
hand, so as to include the scattered groups of Polynesia in one great
continent, and even to reach so far as Madagascar on the west. This was
the region of gigantic fowls, and of marsupial quadrupeds. Kangaroos of
eight or nine feet in stature leaped over the primeval bush, and wombats
and dasyures of elephantine bulk burrowed in the hill sides, and great
lion-like beasts prowled about the plains. But surely the most
characteristic feature of the scene was impressed by the birds! Vast
struthious birds, which would have looked down with supreme contempt on
the loftiest African ostrich, whose limb-bones greatly exceeded in bulk
those of our dray horses, whose three-toed feet made a print in the clay
some eighteen inches long, and whose proud heads commanded the horizon
from an elevation of twelve feet above the ground,--terrible birds,
whose main development of might was in the legs and feet, being utterly
destitute of the least trace of wings--these strode swiftly about the
rank ferny brakes, possessing a conscious power of defence in the back
stroke of their muscular feet, and fearless of man or beast, mainly
nocturnal in their activity, concealing themselves by day in the
recesses of the dense forests, where the majestic trees were interwoven
with cable-like climbers, or couching in the midst of tall reeds and
aroideous plants that margined the great swampy lakes of these regions.
But what of our own land? What of these distant isles of the Gentiles in
that early day, when the enterprising sons of Cain, migrating from the
already straitened land of Nod, were pushing their advancing columns,
with arts and arms, in all directions over the young earth? Did any of
them reach to the as yet insular Europe, settling themselves along the
margins of its deep gulfs and draining basins? Perhaps they did, and
even explored the utmost limits of the great Atlantic island, on the
remains of which we live. What did they find here? A land of mountain
and valley, of plain and down, of lake and river, of bog and fell, of
forest and field, in some features much as now: where the oak, and elm,
and ash covered great tracts, and the birch and fir clothed the hills;
but where the yew and the laurel grew side by side with the
custard-apple and the fan-palm, and the ground was overrun with trailers
of the gourd and melon kind, but where grasses were few and scarce, the
exquisite order _Rosaceæ_, with its beautiful flowers and grateful
fruit, was rarely seen, and the aromatic _Labiatæ_--the thyme, and mint,
and sage--were as yet unknown.
And the beasts that already tenanted this fair land were for bulk and
power worthy of the domain. The Dinothere and the Mastodon wallowed and
browsed where great London now crowds its princely palaces. Through the
greenwood shades of the forests of oak wandered hippopotamuses and
rhinoceroses of several kinds, the long-tusked mammoth, and two or three
species of horses. Two gigantic oxen--a bison and a urus--roamed over
the fir-clad hills of Scotland, and a curious flat-headed ox, of small
size and minute horns, made Ireland its peculiar home. That island, too,
was the metropolis of a colossal fallow-deer, whose remains, ticketed as
those of the Irish Elk, astonish us in our museums. It stood seven feet
in height at the withers, and waved its branching antlers, eleven feet
wide, twelve feet and upwards above the ground;[6] yet its magnificent
stature could not preserve it from a not infrequent fate, that of
becoming intombed in the deep bogs of its native isle. Britain had,
moreover, a stag of scarcely less gigantic proportions, with the
reindeer of the north, and the smaller kinds with which we are now
familiar.
All these herbivores, and numberless smaller genera, some now extinct,
some surviving, were kept in check by powerful predatory tyrants, for
whose representatives we must now look to the jungles of India or the
burning karroos of Southern Africa. The Lion and the Tiger stalked over
these isles, and a terrible tiger-like creature, the Machairode, of even
superior size and power to the scourge of the Bengal jungle, with curved
and saw-edged canine-teeth, hung upon the flanks of the cervine and
bovine herds, and sprang upon the fattest of them. Then, too, there was
a vast Bear, huger and mightier than the fearful grizzly bear of
America, which haunted caves, and prowling around forced down with its
horrid paws the shaggy bull, and broke his stout neck by main force, and
dragged the body home to devour at leisure. And many of these caves, the
holes and chasms of the limestone districts, were inhabited by a
gigantic species of Hyena, which seems to have existed in great numbers,
so that the caverns are strewn all over, from end to end, with thousands
of teeth and disjointed bones, both of the hyenas themselves and of the
other carnivores; shewing that there they lived and died in successive
generations; and, mainly, of other creatures, of very varied species,
great and small, most of them cracked, and crushed, and gnawed, shewing
the plain marks of the powerful conical teeth of those obscene nocturnal
animals.
Thus I have endeavoured to draw a picture, vague and imperfect, I know,
of some of the more remarkable and prominent features of the primeval
earth, limiting the sketch to those forms which we know only by their
fossil remains. In endeavouring to paint their contour and general
appearance, and still more their habits and instincts, conjecture must
be largely at work--a conjecture, however, which takes for its basis the
anatomical exigencies of the osseous structure, and the analogy of
existing creatures the most nearly related to the fossil.
These forms, many of them so huge and uncouth, are well known as having
tenanted various regions of the earth during what is known as the
Tertiary Era, in its later periods. They certainly do not exist in those
regions now. When did their life--their species-life--terminate? I have
been assuming that they were upon the earth, as living sentient beings,
in the earliest age of what we call the historic period--that is,
according to the chronology of the Word of God, which must be true,
within the last six thousand years. This assumption is so heterodox,
that unsupported by evidence, it would be generally rejected; let us
then inquire what evidence there is that man was an inhabitant of the
globe contemporaneously with these huge giants of the bestial creation.
I do not pretend to offer positive evidence concerning the synchronism
of _all_ the animals I have been describing with man; but, as there is
no doubt that they were all contemporaneous, _inter se_, if we can
attain to good grounds for concluding his co-existence with _some_ of
them, it may be no unfair presumption that the case was so with the
others.
And first, with respect to the _Colossochelys Atlas_, that vast fossil
land tortoise of the Sewalik hills, in the north of India, whose
carapace may have covered an area of twelve or fifteen feet in diameter,
and whose entire length, as in walking, when head and tail were
protruded, could not have been much less than thirty feet. The
discoverers of this interesting relic, Dr Falconer and Major Cauntley,
have discussed the question of its probable cessation of existence with
some care; and they have come to the conclusion "that there are fair
grounds for entertaining the belief, as probable, that the
_Colossochelys Atlas_ may have lived down to an early period of the
human epoch, and become extinct since." This they infer on two grounds:
first, from the fact that, in the same strata, which are not limited to
the Sewalik hills, but extend, with the remains of this immense
tortoise, all over the great Indian area, from Ava to the Gulf of
Cambay, other tortoises, crocodiles, &c., which were contemporary with
the _Colossochelys_, have survived to the present time; and, secondly,
from mythologic and cosmogonic traditions of many eastern nations,
having reference to a tortoise of such gigantic size as to be associated
in the current fables with an elephant.[7]
Elian, the Greek naturalist, quoting Megasthenes, a still older
authority, who resided several years in India, and who collected a good
deal of interesting information concerning the country, reports that in
the sea around Ceylon there were found tortoises of such enormous
dimensions that huts were made of their shells, each shell being fifteen
cubits (or twenty-two feet) long; so that several people were able to
find comfortable shelter under it from the rain and sun.[8] And both
Strabo and Pliny[9] assert that the Chelonophagi, who inhabited the
shores of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, converted the enormous
shells of the turtles which they caught into roofs for their houses and
boats for their little voyages. It has been suggested that the
_Colossochelys_ may have given origin to these statements; but I rather
think the great sea-turtles of the genus _Chelone_ are referred to, the
convex shells of which are known in our own day to reach to a length of
eight feet or upwards.
The circumstances attending the discovery of the rhinoceros and elephant
of Siberia are very curious and interesting; since of them we have not
the fossilised skeletons, but the carcases preserved in a fresh state,
as if just dead, with (in one case) the flesh upon the bones in an
eatable state, and actually forming the food of dogs and wolves, the
skin entire, and covered with fur, and even the eyes so perfectly
preserved that the pupils could be distinctly seen.
In 1771, in the frozen gravelly soil of Wilhuji, in the northern part of
Siberia, an animal was found partially exposed. It was twelve feet in
length; its body was enveloped in a skin which had the thickness and
firmness of sole-leather, but was destitute of folds. Short hair,
strongly planted in the pores of the skin, grew on the face in tufts; it
was rigid in texture, and of a grey hue, with here and there a black
bristle, larger and stiffer than the rest. Short ash-grey hair was
observed to clothe the legs, in moderate profusion. The eyelids and
eyelashes were still visible; the remains of the brain were still in the
cavity of the skull, and the flesh of the body, in a putrefying
condition, was still beneath the skin. On the nose there were
indications of a horn having been seated, around which the integument
had formed a sort of fold.
Thus the creature was known to be a Rhinoceros, and the head and feet
were lifted, and conveyed to St Petersburg, where they are still
preserved in the Imperial Museum. Men of science soon remarked that in
very many points this specimen differed from any species now known; and,
indeed, a hairy rhinoceros was, in itself, an anomaly. Subsequent
investigations have revealed that the same species, known as _Rhinoceros
tichorhinus_, inhabited Siberia in great numbers, and is now extinct.
Nearly thirty years afterwards a still more interesting revelation
occurred. The shores of the Icy Ocean had yielded a vast number of
tusks, not distinguishable from those of the known elephants, and
capable of being worked up by ivory-manufacturers, so that they occupied
a well-recognised place in the commercial markets, and they constitute
to this day the principal supply of the Russian ivory-turners. A
fisherman living at the mouth of the Lena, being one day engaged in
collecting tusks, saw among some ice-blocks an uncouth object. The next
year he observed it still further exposed, and in the following season,
1801, he saw that it was an enormous animal, having great tusks, one of
which, with the entire side of the carcase, projected from the frozen
mass. He knew it to be a _Mammoth_, for so the fossil elephants were
called, and observed it with interest. The next season was so cold that
no change took place; but in 1803, the melting of the ice proceeded so
far that the gigantic animal fell down from the cliff entire, and was
deposited on the sand beneath. The following season the fisherman,
Schumachoff, cut out the tusks, which he sold for fifty rubles, and two
years after this the scene was visited by Mr Adams, in the service of
the Imperial Court, who has given an interesting account of his
observations, made, it must be remembered, in the seventh year after the
first discovery:--
"I found the Mammoth," observes this gentleman, "still in the same
place, but altogether mutilated ... the Jakutski of the neighbourhood
having cut off the flesh, with which they fed their dogs during the
scarcity. Wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, wolverines, and
foxes, also fed upon it, and the traces of their footsteps were seen
around. The skeleton, almost entirely devoid of its flesh, remained
whole, with the exception of one fore-leg. The head was covered with a
dry skin; one of the ears, well preserved, was furnished with a tuft of
hairs. All these parts have necessarily been injured in transporting
them a distance of 7330 miles (to St Petersburg); but the eyes have been
preserved, and the pupil of one can still be distinguished.
"The Mammoth was a male, with a long mane on the neck. The tail and
proboscis were not preserved. The skin, of which I possess
three-fourths, is of a dark-grey colour, covered with reddish wool and
black hairs; but the dampness of the spot, where it had lain so long,
had in some degree destroyed the hair. The entire carcase, of which I
collected the bones on the spot, was nine feet four inches high, and
sixteen feet four inches long, without including the tusks, which
measured nine feet six inches along the curve. The distance from the
base or root of the tusk to the point is three feet seven inches. The
two tusks together weighed three hundred and sixty pounds, English
weight, and the head alone four hundred and fourteen pounds.
"I next detached the skin of the side on which the animal had lain,
which was well preserved. This skin was of such extraordinary weight
that ten persons found difficulty in transporting it to the shore. After
this I dug the ground in different places, to ascertain whether any of
its bones were buried, but principally to collect all the hairs which
the white bears had trod into the ground while devouring the flesh.
Although this was difficult from the want of instruments, I succeeded in
collecting more than a pood (thirty-six pounds) of hair. In a few days
the work was completed, and I found myself in possession of a treasure
which amply recompensed me for the fatigues and dangers of the journey,
and the considerable expenses of the enterprise.... The escarpment of
ice was thirty-five to forty toises high; and, according to the report
of the Tungusians, the animal was, when they first saw it, seven toises
below the surface of the ice, &c. On arriving with the Mammoth at
Borchaya, our first care was to separate the remaining flesh and
ligaments from the bones, which were then packed up. When I arrived at
the Jakutsk, I had the good fortune to repurchase the tusks, and from
thence expedited the whole to St Petersburg. The skeleton is now in the
Museum of the Academy, and the skin still remains attached to the head
and feet. A part of the skin, and some of the hair of this animal were
sent by Mr Adams to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented them to the Museum
of the Royal College of Surgeons. The hair is entirely separated from
the skin, excepting in one very small part, where it still remains
attached. It consists of two sorts, common hair and bristles, and of
each there are several varieties, differing in length and thickness.
That remaining fixed on the skin is of the colour of the camel, an inch
and a-half long, very thick-set, and curled in locks. It is interspersed
with a few bristles about three inches long, of a dark-reddish colour.
Among the separate parcels of hair are some rather redder than the short
hair just mentioned, about four inches; and some bristles nearly black,
much thicker than horse hair, and from twelve to eighteen inches long.
The skin, when first brought to the Museum, was offensive; it is now
quite dry and hard, and where most compact, is half-an-inch thick. Its
colour is the dull black of the living elephants."[10]
To me this narrative possesses an intense interest, and I have gazed
with great curiosity on the bit of dried and blackened leather that is
preserved in the Museum in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, knowing it to have
presented the primal freshness of life within the present century. I
cannot help thinking that both the rhinoceros and this elephant roamed
over the plains of Siberia, not only since the creation of man, but even
since the Deluge. The freshness of their state shews that the freezing
up of their carcases must have been sudden, and immediate upon death.
What supposition so natural as that, perhaps in a blinding snowstorm,
they slipped into a crevice in the ice-cliff, were snowed up instantly,
and thus preserved by the antiseptic power of frost to this age? The
glaciers of the north may hold multitudes more of these and kindred
creatures, some of which may yet be disinterred, or thawed out, and may
lift yet more the curtain which so tantalisingly covers the conditions
of their life-history. These two huge Pachyderms are certainly extinct
now; yet their remains, scattered over so vast an area, are everywhere
associated with those of other animals which were indubitably
contemporary with them, and whose species-life is continued to our own
times. Some of these, as the great bear and the musk-ox of the sub-polar
regions, we know to be in the habit of migrating northward in spring,
and southward in autumn. That no lack of suitable food would be found,
even in such high latitudes, for browsing quadrupeds, appears from the
fact that, even beyond the parallel of 75° north, large birch-trees are
found embedded in the cliffs, in abundance sufficient to be largely used
as common fuel, and still retaining their woody fibre, their bark,
branches, and roots. The climate then was not _greatly_ different from
what it is now, when the birch, as a tree, reaches to about 70°.
It is interesting to observe that both this elephant and this rhinoceros
were inhabitants of England also; and that at the same period as the
cavern bear, the hyena, the lion, and the machairode, the baboon, the
bison, and the urus, the Irish elk, and the extinct horse; at the same
time too, as the reindeer, the stag, the black bear, the wolf and fox,
the beaver, the wild cat, the hare, and rabbit, the otter and badger,
the wild hog, the rat and mouse, all our present shrews, the mole, the
stoat and polecat, the noctule and the horse-shoe bats. And curious it
is to note, as we go over this list, how some of the creatures
enumerated are long extinct everywhere, some have been long extinct in
England, but are still found elsewhere, some have more recently become
extinct here, but at different eras, some are nearly extinguished, and
some are yet abundant in different degrees.
I do not attach much importance to the traditions of the Siberians, that
the tusks and skeletons which they find belonged to a large
subterraneous animal, which could not bear the light; nor to those of
the Chinese, respecting a similar burrowing quadruped of prodigious
bulk, which they call, by a sort of irony, _tyn-schu_, or the mouse that
hides himself. The fables may have easily been formed from the
observation of the fossil bones, and do not necessarily imply any memory
of the living original.
The two examples of the exhumation of _Pachydermata_ in a fresh state,
which I have given in detail, are by no means the only cases that have
occurred. It is the universally-received belief throughout Siberia, that
Mammoths have been found with the flesh quite fresh and filled with
blood; probably meaning that the animal juices flowed when thawed.
Isbrand Ides mentions a head on which the flesh, in a decaying state,
was present; and a frozen leg, as large as the body of a man; and Jean
Bernhard Müller speaks of a tusk, the cavity of which was filled with a
substance which resembled coagulated blood.
Again, in the voyage of Sarytschew, particulars are given of the
discovery of a Mammoth on the banks of the Alaseia, a river which flows
into the Arctic Ocean, beyond the Indigirska. It had been dislodged by a
flood, and somewhat injured; but the carcase was still almost entire,
and was covered with the skin, to which in some places long hair
remained attached.
These statements might reasonably have been esteemed either fables or
gross exaggerations, but for the subsequent discovery of the rhinoceros
and elephant whose remains have been brought to Europe. Read in the
light of these accounts, the earlier stories take the dignity of
authentic history; and it is interesting to note how well these details
agree with those observed by the accurate Adams;--the long hair, for
example, with which the Alaseia carcase was clothed being the very
counterpart of that upon the Lena elephant; though _à priori_ we should
have looked for a very different condition in the integument of these
huge Pachyderms.
If we look now at the great Mastodon, that elephantine beast, which with
a stature equal to that of the tallest African elephant combined a much
greater length of body and bulk of limb, we shall see some reason for
concluding that the period of its decease is not indefinitely removed
from our own era. Its remains occur in greatest abundance in North
America; and it is interesting to observe that among several of the
aboriginal tribes of Red men there were extant traditions of the
Mastodon as a living creature. Dim, vague, and distorted these
traditions are; but so far from our rejecting them _in toto_ on that
account, we ought rather to consider these characters as evidence of
their antiquity. When semi-savage nations present us with
orally-preserved accounts of very remote objects or actions, we look, as
a matter of course, for a considerable element of the wild, and
extravagant, and absurd in them. If we found nothing but what was
reasonable, and consistent, and intelligible, we should say in a moment,
this account cannot have been transmitted very far. The question, in the
case before us, is not, we must remember, the precise habits and
instincts of the Mastodon, but whether the Indians knew anything at all
of the Mastodon having ever been a living animal. Now, as I have
observed, they had. M. Fabri, a French officer who had served in Canada,
informed Buffon that the Red men spoke of the great bones which lay
scattered in various parts of that region as having belonged to an
animal which, after their oriental style, they named _Le Père aux
B{oe}ufs_. The Shawnee Indians believed that with these enormous animals
there existed men of proportionate development, and that the Great Being
destroyed both with thunderbolts. Those of Virginia stated that, as a
troop of these terrible quadrupeds were destroying the deer, the bisons,
and the other animals created for the use of the Indians, the Great Man
slew them all with His thunder, except the big bull, who, nothing
daunted, presented his enormous forehead to the bolts, and shook them
off as they fell, till, being at last wounded in the side, he fled
towards the great lakes, where he is to this day.
Evidence of the comparatively-recent entombment of these remains exists,
however, of another character. They do not in general appear to have
been rolled, but to have lived where they are now found; in some
instances, as along the Great Osage River, being imbedded in a vertical
position, as if the animals had been suddenly bogged in the swampy soil.
Nor is there any great accumulation of earth upon them generally. All
along the edges of that great saline morass called, from the abundance
of these animal relics, Big Bone Lick, and on the borders, the skeletons
are found sunk in the soft earth, many of them not more than a yard or
two below the surface, and some even scarcely covered. With them are
found in large numbers the bones of the existing bison, the wapiti-stag,
and other herbivores, which still throng to the same place, for the same
reasons, and meet the same fate.
Comparative anatomy determines, from the structure of the bones of the
head in the Mastodon, that it must have carried a proboscis like that of
the elephant. This, though wholly fleshy, has left traces of its
existence. Barton reports that, in 1762, out of five skeletons which
were seen by the natives, one skull still possessed what they described
as a "long nose" with the mouth under it. And Kalm, in speaking of a
skeleton, discovered by the Indians in what is now the State of
Illinois, says that the form of the trunk was still apparent, though
half decomposed. The preservation of these perishable tissues in this
case must doubtless be attributed to the salt with which the bog-earth
is saturated. Still more recently a skeleton was found in Virginia,
which contained a very interesting proof of the food of the animal: a
mass of twigs, grass, and leaves, in a half-bruised state, enclosed in a
sort of sac, lay within the cavity of the body, doubtless the contents
of the stomach. Some of the twigs could be identified as those of
existing species of trees and shrubs, among them a species of _rose_,
still common in the region.
All this is very strong evidence that the deposition of these remains
cannot have taken place in a _very_ remote era,--that, in fact, it must
have been since the general deluge recorded in the Word of God.
Hugh Miller has an interesting observation concerning the actual date of
geologic phenomena in North America, compared with that of their
counterparts in the Old World. He says, "The much greater remoteness of
the mastodontic period in Europe than in America is a circumstance
worthy of notice, as it is one of many facts that seem to indicate a
general transposition of at least the later geologic ages on the
opposite sides of the Atlantic. Groups of corresponding character on the
eastern and western shores of this great ocean were not contemporaneous
in time. It has been repeatedly remarked that the existing plants and
trees of the United States, with not a few of its fishes and reptiles,
bear in their forms and constructions the marks of a much greater
antiquity than those of Europe. The geologist who set himself to
discover similar types on the eastern side of the Atlantic, would have
to seek for them among the deposits of the later tertiaries. North
America seems to be still passing through its later tertiary ages; and
it appears to be a consequence of this curious transposition, that while
in Europe the mastodontic period is removed by two great geologic eras,
from the present time, it is removed from it in America by only
one."[11]
Professor Agassiz has expressed opinions of the same character, adducing
the present existence in America of several forms of animals, which are
known in this hemisphere only in a fossil state.[12]
I cannot refrain from adding the following combination of fact and
speculation, from the pen of an accomplished traveller in Mexico. It
opens up a new train of ideas:--
"Some time before our visit, a number of workmen were employed on the
neighbouring estate of Chapingo, to excavate a canal over that part of
the plain from which the waters have gradually retired during the last
three centuries. At four feet below the surface, they reached an ancient
causeway, of the existence of which there was of course not the most
remote suspicion. The cedar piles, by which the sides were supported,
were still sound at heart. Three feet below the edge of this ancient
work, in what may have been the very ditch, they struck upon the entire
skeleton of a Mastodon, embedded in the blue clay. Many of the most
valuable bones were lost by the careless manner in which they were
extricated; others were ground to powder on their conveyance to the
capital, but sufficient remained to prove that the animal had been of
great size. My informant measured the diameter [_qu._ circumference?]
of the tusk, and found it to be eighteen inches.
"Though I should be very glad to take shelter under the convenient
_Quien sabe_? the use of which I have suggested to you, I could not
avoid, at the time I was in Mexico, putting my isolated facts together,
and feeling inclined to believe that this country had not only been
inhabited in extremely remote times, when the valley bore a very
different aspect from that which it now exhibits, or which tradition
gives it, but that the extinct race of enormous animals, whose remains
would seem, in the instance I have cited, to be coeval with the undated
works of man, may have been subjected to his will, and made
instrumental, by the application of their gigantic force, to the
transport of those vast masses of sculptured and chiselled rock which we
marvel to see lying in positions so far removed from their natural site.
"The existence of these ancient paved causeways also, not only from
their solid construction over the flat and low plains of the valley, but
as they may be traced running for miles over the dry table-land and the
mountains, appears to me to lend plausibility to the supposition; as one
might inquire, to what end the labour of such works, in a country where
beasts of burden were unknown?
"But I leave this subject to wiser heads and bolder theorists. Had the
Mammoth of Chapingo been discovered with a ring in his nose, or a bit in
his mouth, a yoke on his head, or a crupper under his tail, the
question would have been set at rest. As it is, there is plenty of room
for conjecture and dispute."[13]
With respect to the great extinct Mammalia of South America, we find Mr
Darwin, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of so many of them,
continually expressing his wonder at the comparatively modern era of
their existence. After having enumerated nine vast beasts, which he
found imbedded in the beach at Bahia Blanca, within the space of 200
yards square, and remarked how numerous in kinds the ancient inhabitants
of the country must have been, he observes that "this enumeration
belongs to a very late tertiary period. From the bones of the
_Scelidotherium_, including even the kneecap, being entombed in their
proper relative positions, and from the osseous armour of the great
armadillo-like animal being so well preserved, together with the bones
of one of its legs, we may feel assured that these remains were fresh
and united by their ligaments when deposited in the gravel with the
shells. Hence we have good evidence that the above-enumerated gigantic
quadrupeds, more different from those of the present day than the oldest
of the tertiary quadrupeds of Europe, lived whilst the sea was peopled
with most of its present inhabitants."[14]
Of the remains of the Mylodon, and of that strange semi-aquatic creature
the Toxodon, he says, they appeared so fresh that it was difficult to
believe they had lain buried for ages under ground. The bones were so
fresh, that they yielded, on careful analysis, seven per cent. of
animal matter, and when heated in the flame of a spirit-lamp, they not
only exhaled a very strong animal odour, but actually burned with a
small flame.
Mr Darwin's interest was excited by the evidences everywhere present of
the immensity of this extinct population. "The number of the remains
imbedded in the great estuary-deposit which forms the Pampas, and covers
the gigantic rocks of Banda Oriental, must be extraordinarily great. I
believe a straight line drawn in any direction through the Pampas would
cut through some skeleton or bones.... We may suppose that the whole
area of the Pampas is one wide sepulchre of these extinct gigantic
quadrupeds."[15]
The whole plain of South America from the Rio Plata to the Straits of
Magellan has been raised from the sea within the species-life of the
existing sea-shells, the old and weathered specimens of which, left on
the surface of the plain, still partially retain their colours! Darwin
infers, as certain, from data which he has adduced, that the Macrauchen,
that strange giraffe-necked pachyderm, lived _long after_ the sea was
inhabited by its present shells, and when the vegetation of the land
could not have been other than it is now. And if the Macrauchen, then
the Toxodon, the Scelidothere, the Megathere, the Mylodon, the
Glyptodon, the Glossothere, and all the rest of the quaint but mighty
host of gone giants, that once thronged these austral plains.
Evidence for the recent existence of the colossal ostrich-like birds of
New Zealand is stronger still. It is about twenty-one years since the
first intimation was given to scientific Europe of the remains of such
animals, through some bones sent by the Rev. W. Williams to Dr Buckland.
From these, and a collection soon afterwards sent home, Professor Owen
established the genus _Dinornis_, identifying five species, the largest
of which, _D. giganteus_, he concluded to have stood about ten feet in
height. The remains have since been obtained in great profusion, and the
result of further investigations by the Professor has been the
establishment of three other genera, viz., _Palapteryx_, _Nestor_, and
_Notornis_,--the latter a large bird allied to the Rails and Coots.
A very interesting communication from Mr Williams accompanied one of the
consignments, extracts of which I will quote. It bears date "Poverty
Bay, New Zealand, 17th May 1842." "It is about three years ago, on
paying a visit to this coast, south of the East Cape, that the natives
told me of some extraordinary monster, which they said was in existence
in an inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa;
and they shewed me at the same time some fragments of bone taken out of
the beds of rivers, which they said belonged to this creature, to which
they gave the name of _Moa_. When I came to reside in this neighbourhood
I heard the same story a little enlarged; for it was said that this
creature _was still existing_ at the said hill, of which the name is
Wakapunake, and that it is guarded by a reptile of the Lizard species,
but I could not learn that any of the present generation had seen it. I
still considered the whole as an idle fable, but offered a large reward
to any who would catch me either the bird or its protector." These
offers procured the collection of a considerable number of fossil bones,
on which Mr Williams makes the following observations:--
"1. None of these bones have been found on the dry land, but are all of
them from the banks and beds of fresh-water rivers, buried only a little
distance in the mud.... All the streams are in immediate connexion with
hills of some altitude.
"2. This bird was in existence here at no very distant time, though not
in the memory of any of the inhabitants: for the bones are found in the
beds of the present streams, and do not appear to have been brought into
their present situation by the action of any violent rush of waters.
"3. They existed in considerable numbers,--(an observation which has
since been abundantly confirmed.)
"4. It may be inferred that this bird was long-lived, and that it was
many years before it attained its full size. (The writer grounds this
inference on the disparity in dimensions of the corresponding bones,
supposing that they all belonged to one and the same species; which,
however, was an erroneous assumption.)
"5. The greatest height of the bird was probably not less than fourteen
or sixteen feet. The leg-bones now sent give the height of six feet to
the root of the tail.
"Within the last few days I have obtained a piece of information worthy
of notice. Happening to speak to an American about these bones, he told
me that the bird is still in existence in the neighbourhood of Cloudy
Bay, in Cook's Straits. He said that the natives there had mentioned to
an Englishman belonging to a whaling party, that there was a bird of
extraordinary size to be seen only at night, on the side of a hill near
the place, and that he, with a native and a second Englishman, went to
the spot; that, after waiting some time, they saw the creature at a
little distance, which they describe as being about fourteen or sixteen
feet high. One of the men proposed to go nearer and shoot, but his
companion was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of them, that
they were satisfied with looking at the bird, when, after a little time,
it took the alarm, and strode off up the side of the mountain.
"This incident might not have been worth mentioning, had it not been for
the extraordinary agreement in point of the size of the bird [with my
deductions from the bones]. _Here_ are the bones which will satisfy you
that such a bird _has been_ in existence; and _there_ is said to be the
_living bird_, the supposed size of which, given by an independent
witness, precisely agrees."
[Illustration: ENCOUNTER WITH A MOA.]
The story told of the whaler appears to me to bear marks of truth. The
bold essay to explore, the terror inspired by the gigantic figure,
especially in the solemnity of night, the description of the manners of
the bird running and striding, so like those of the Apteryx, with which
its bones shew the Moa to have been closely allied, and the inglorious
return of the party without achieving any exploit, are all too
natural to permit the thought that no more than inventive power has been
at work.
And well may the colossus have inspired fear. The bones sent to London
greatly exceed in bulk those of the largest horse. The leg-bone of a
tall man is about one foot four inches in length, and the thigh of
O'Brien, the Irish giant, whose skeleton, eight feet high, is mounted in
the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, is not quite two feet. But
the leg-bone (_tibia_) of the _Dinornis_ we know measured as much as two
feet ten inches, and we have no reason to suppose, considering the
disparity that exists in the specimens examined, that we have seen by
any means the largest.
Additional reason for supposing these magnificent birds to have existed
not long ago, is found in the fact that specimens of their eggs have
been preserved. The circumstances attendant on the discovery and
identification of these possess a remarkable interest. In the volcanic
sand of New Zealand Mr Walter Mantell found a gigantic egg, which we may
reasonably infer to be that of either _Dinornis_ or _Palapteryx_, of the
magnitude of which he gives us a familiar idea by saying that his hat
would have been but just large enough to have served as an egg-cup for
it. This is the statement of a man of science, and therefore we may
assume an approximate degree of precision in the comparison.
I do not know the size of Mr Mantell's hat, but I find that the
transverse diameter of my own is six inches or a little more. If we may
take this as the shorter diameter of the ovoid, the longer would
probably be about eight and a half inches; dimensions considerably
greater than those of the Ostrich's egg (which are about six and a
quarter in length), but not what we should have expected from a bird
from twelve to fourteen feet in height. And this the rather when we
consider that the egg of the New Zealand _Apteryx_, to which these birds
manifest a very close affinity, is one of dimensions that are quite
surprising in proportion to the bulk of the bird. The Apteryx is about
as big as a turkey, standing two feet in height, but its egg measures
four inches ten lines by three inches two lines in the respective
diameters. The egg of the _Dinornis giganteus_, to bear the same ratio
to the bird as this, would be of the incredible length of two feet and a
half, by a breadth of one and three quarters! Possibly this specimen,
though indubitably the egg of one of this great family of extinct birds,
may after all be that of one of the subordinate species.
But about the same time as Mr Mantell's discovery, one of equal interest
was made in Madagascar. The master of a French ship obtained, in 1850,
from natives of the island, three eggs, of far greater size, and
fragments of the leg-bones of an immense bird. These, on their arrival
at Paris, formed the subjects of valuable investigations by M. Isidore
Geoffroy St Hilaire[16] and Professor Owen.[17]
The native statement was, that one of the eggs had been found entire in
the bed of a torrent, among the debris of a land-slip; that a second
egg, with some fragments of bone, was subsequently found in a formation
_which is stated to be alluvial_; a third egg, which the natives had
perforated at one end, and used as a vessel, was also found. This last
egg was broken in the carriage, the other two arrived in Europe entire.
These two, though nearly alike in size, differed considerably in their
relative proportions and shape, the one being shorter and thicker, with
more equal ends than the other. The following table shews the dimensions
of both compared with those of an ostrich's egg:--
Ovoid egg. Ellipsoid egg. Ostrich egg.
ft. in. li. ft. in. li. ft. in. li.
Longer circumference 2 10 9 2 9 6 1 6 0
Shorter circumference 2 4 3 2 5 6 1 4 6
Extreme length 1 0 8 1 0 5 0 6 4
M. Geoffroy St Hilaire estimates the larger of the two to contain 10-1/8
quarts, or the contents of nearly six eggs of the Ostrich, or sixteen of
the Cassowary, or a hundred and forty-eight of the Hen, or fifty
thousand of the Humming bird.[18]
The fragments of bone indicated a bird of the same natural affinities as
the New Zealand colossi, and of dimensions not widely remote from
theirs. Professor Owen thinks that it did not exceed in height or size
_Dinornis giganteus_, and that there is a probability that it was
slightly smaller. The Madagascar bird has been named _Æpyornis
maximus_.
The fragments of the egg of the New Zealand bird (still uncertain as to
the species to which it is to be referred) shew that the shell was
absolutely thinner, and therefore relatively _much_ thinner than that of
the Ostrich's egg; the air-pores, too, have a different form, being
linear, instead of round, and the surface is smoother. In these
qualities, the New Zealand egg resembles that of the _Apteryx_; in the
thickness and roughness of the egg of _Æpyornis_ there is more
similarity to those of the Ostrich and Cassowary. The colour of the
Madagascar egg is a dull greyish yellow; but it is possible that this
may be derived from the soil in which it has long been imbedded. The
fragments of the New Zealand egg are white, like the eggs of the
_Apteryx_ and Ostrich: those of the Emu and Cassowary are light green.
The willing fancy suggests the possibility that, in an island of such
immensity as Madagascar, possessing lofty mountain-ranges, covered with
the most magnificent forests, where civilised man has only yet touched
one or two spots on the seaward borders, but where these slight
explorations have educed so many wondrous animals, so many strange forms
of vegetable life, the noble _Æpyornis_ may yet be stalking with giant
stride along the fern-fringed hill-sides, or through the steaming
thickets; though in the more contracted area of New Zealand its equally
ponderous cousins, the _Dinornis_ and the _Palapteryx_, may have sunk
beneath the persevering persecutions of man.
Yet another item of evidence bearing on the recent if not present
existence of these great fowls has recently come to light:--the most
interesting discovery that one of the genera whose fossil remains had
been found associated with theirs is really extant in New Zealand. I
refer to the _Notornis_.
At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London, held on the 13th
November 1850, Dr Mantell made the following communication relative to
this discovery:--
"It was in the course of last year, on the occasion of my son's second
visit to the south of the middle island, that he had the good fortune to
secure the recent _Notornis_, which I now submit, having previously
placed it in the hands of the eminent ornithologist Mr Gould, to figure
and describe. This bird was taken by some sealers who were pursuing
their avocations in Dusky Bay. Perceiving the trail of a large and
unknown bird on the snow, with which the ground was then covered, they
followed the footprints till they obtained a sight of the _Notornis_,
which their dogs instantly pursued, and, after a long chase, caught
alive in the gully of a sound behind Resolution Island. It ran with
great speed, and on being captured uttered loud screams, and fought and
struggled violently. It was kept alive three or four days on board the
schooner, and then killed, and the body roasted and eaten by the crew,
each partaking of the dainty, which was declared to be delicious. The
beak and legs were of a bright red colour. My son secured the skin,
together with very fine specimens of the Kapapo or ground parrot
(_Strigops_), a pair of Huias (_Neomorpha_), and two species of
Kiwikiwi, namely _Apteryx Australis_, and _A. Oweni_. The latter very
rare bird is now added to the collection of the British Museum."
"Mr Walter Mantell states, that, according to the native traditions, a
large Rail was contemporary with the Moa, and formed a principal article
of food among their ancestors. It was known to the North Islanders by
the name 'Moho,' and to the South Islanders by that of 'Takahe;' but the
bird was considered by both natives and Europeans to have been long
since exterminated by the wild cats and dogs; not an individual having
been seen or heard of since the arrival of the English colonists. On
comparing the head of the bird with the fossil cranium, and mandibles,
and the figures and descriptions in the 'Zoological Transactions' (Plate
lvi.), my son was at once convinced of their identity. It may not be
irrelevant to add, that in the course of Mr Walter Mantell's journey
from Banks's Peninsula along the coast to Otago, he learned from the
natives that they believed there still existed in that country the only
indigenous terrestrial quadruped, except a species of rat, which there
are any reasonable grounds for concluding New Zealand ever possessed.
While encamping at Arowenua, in the district of Timaru, the Maoris
assured them that about ten miles inland there was a quadruped which
they called Káureke, and that it was formerly abundant, and often kept
by their ancestors in a domestic state as a pet animal. It was described
as about two feet in length, with coarse grizzly hair; and must have
more nearly resembled the otter or badger than the beaver or the
Ornithorhynchus, which the first accounts seem to suggest as the
probable type. The offer of a liberal reward induced some of the Maoris
to start for the interior of the country where the Káureke was supposed
to be located; but they returned without having obtained the slightest
trace of the existence of such an animal. My son, however, expresses his
belief in the native accounts, and that, if the creature no longer
exists, its extermination is of very recent date. In concluding this
brief narrative of the discovery of a genus of birds once contemporary
with the colossal Moa, and hitherto only known by its fossil remains, I
beg to remark that this highly interesting fact tends to confirm the
conclusions expressed in my communication to the Geological Society,
namely, that the _Dinornis_, _Palapteryx_, and related forms, were
coeval with some of the existing species of birds peculiar to New
Zealand, and that their final extinction took place at no very distant
period, and long after the advent of the aboriginal Maoris."
Mr Gould then read a paper pointing out the zoological characters of the
bird discovered by Mr Mantell, which he had no hesitation in identifying
as the species formerly characterised, from its osseous remains, by
Professor Owen, under the name of _Notornis Mantelli_. Mr Gould, in
adverting to the extreme interest with which the present existence of a
species which was certainly contemporary with the Moa must be regarded,
pointed out, from the preserved skin, which was on the table, how
accurate a prevision of its character had been made by Professor Owen,
when investigating the fragments from which our first knowledge of it
had been derived.[19]
At length I come home to Great Britain and Ireland--the "nice little,
tight little islands" where so many of our sympathies properly centre,
where natural-history facts and all other facts interest us so much more
than parallel facts elsewhere, and where, above all, there are so many
more lights streaming into the darkness, and bringing out truth. Let us
again look back to the period of the Bison, and Reindeer, and Elk, of
the Elephant, and Hippopotamus, and Rhinoceros, of the Lion and the
Hyena, and the great Cave Bear, and search among the vanishing traces of
the far past for glimpses of evidence when their age ceased to be.
Some dim light falls on the obscurity from the discovery of the fossil
remains of man himself--the human bones found by Dr Schmerling in a
cavern near Liege, the remains mentioned by M. Marcel de Serres and
others in several caverns in France, associated with fossil relics of
this period. But more from the occurrence of flints, apparently
fashioned by human art, in superficial deposits, together with the same
extinct fossils of the tertiary. Even at the very moment that I write
this sheet, my eye falls on the report[20] of an important meeting of
the Ethnological Society, for the purpose of discussing this very
subject of "The flint implements found associated with the bones of
extinct animals in the Drift." Many of the leading geologists and
archæologists were present, for the matter has become one of absorbing
interest, conflicting, as the facts seem to do, with some assumptions
received as unquestioned verities in Geology.
These flints, which seem indubitably to have been chipped into the forms
of arrow-heads, lance-heads, and the like, have been found in France in
large numbers, as also in other parts of the continent, and in England.
They resemble those still used by some savage tribes. In this very
neighbourhood, as in the cavern called Kent's Hole near Torquay, and in
one more recently examined at Brixham, they are found mixed up with the
bones of the Rhinoceros, of the Cave Bear, and the Hyena, At
Menchecourt, near Abbeville, they occur in a deposit of sand, sandy
clay, and marl, with bones of the same animals, and others, their
contemporaries. Concerning this bed, Mr Prestwich, in a paper read
before the Royal Society, May 26, 1859, says that it must be referred to
those usually designated as post pliocene, but that the period of its
deposit was anterior to that of the surface assuming its present
outline, so far as some of its minor features are concerned. "He does
not, however, consider that the facts of necessity carry man back in
past time more than they _bring forward the great extinct mammals
towards our own time_, the evidence having reference only to relative,
and not to absolute time; and he is of opinion that many of the later
geological changes may have been sudden, or of shorter duration than
generally considered. In fact, from the evidence here exhibited, and
from all that he knows regarding the drift phenomena generally, the
author sees no reason against the conclusion that this period of man and
the extinct mammals--supposing their contemporaneity to be proved--was
brought to a sudden end by a temporary inundation of the land; on the
contrary, he sees much to support such a view on purely geological
considerations."[21]
At the meeting of the Ethnological Society just held, there seems to
have been an increasing tendency to admit the hypothesis of the
continuance of the Mammalia of the Tertiary into the human era. Mr
Evans, who exhibited specimens taken at a depth of twenty to thirty
feet, from a stratum of coarse fresh-water gravel, lying on chalk, and
containing an entire skeleton of an extinct Rhinoceros, and overlaid by
sandy marl containing existing shells, shewed that the deposit had
certainly not been disturbed till the present time, so that the gravel,
the bones, and the flints had been deposited coetaneously. He suggested
"that the animals supposed to have become extinct before man was created
might have continued to exist to more recent periods than had been
admitted." And this opinion found support from other leading geologists.
That this conclusion would throw the existence of man to an era far
higher than that assigned to him by the inspired Word, is, I know,
generally held; and certain investigations, made in the alluvial deposit
of the Nile,[22] are considered to prove that man has been living in a
state of comparative civilisation in the Nile Valley for the last
13,500 years. But that conclusion absolutely rests on the supposition
that the rate of increase formed by the annual deposit of the Nile mud
has been always exactly the same as now,--a supposition, not only
without the least shadow of proof, but also directly contrary to the
highest probability, nay, certainty, in the estimation of those who
believe in the Noachian deluge. For surely the drainage of the entire
plain of North Africa after that inundation must have produced an
alluvium of vast thickness in a very brief time; while beneath that
deposit the works of the antediluvian world might well be buried. Yet
the possibility of there ever having been any greater rate of deposit
than within the last 3000 years, the recorder of those investigations,
in his unseemly haste to prove the Bible false, strangely leaves wholly
out of his consideration.
So, doubtless, concerning other deposits containing fossil remains,
whose extreme antiquity is assumed from the known rate of
surface-increase now, we ought to remember that we have not a tittle of
proof that the rate of increase has not at certain remote periods been
suddenly and immensely augmented. There are many facts on record which
tend to shew that the rate at which geologic changes take place in
certain localities affords no reliable data whatever to infer that at
which phenomena apparently quite parallel have occurred in other
localities. An upheaval or a subsidence of one part of a country may
rapidly effect a great change in the amount of soil or gravel
precipitated by streams, without destroying or changing their channels,
and yet the deposit may be made sufficiently gradually to allow the
burial of shells or of bones of creatures which lived and died on the
spot.
The degradation of a cliff, either suddenly or gradually, might throw a
vast quantity of fragments into a rapid stream, and cause a deposit of
gravel of considerable breadth and thickness in a comparatively short
period of time,--say a century or two.
Sir Charles Lyell has adduced examples of very rapid formation of
certain stony deposits, which should make us cautious how we assert that
such and such a thickness _must_ have required a vast number of years.
In one of them there is a thickness of 200 or 300 feet of travertine of
recent deposit, while in another, a solid mass _thirty feet thick was
deposited in about twenty years_. There are countless places in Italy
where the formation of limestone may be seen, as also in Auvergne and
other volcanic districts.[23]
From these and similar considerations it seems to me by no means
unreasonable that the four thousand years which elapsed between the
Creation and the commencement of Western European history should have
been amply sufficient for many of those geological operations whose
results are seen in what are known as the later Tertiary deposits,--the
crag, the drift, the cavern-accumulations, and the like. And, as a
corollary to this, that the great extinct Mammalia may have extended
into this period, and thus have been contemporary with man, for a
greater or less duration, according to the species; some, probably,
having been extinguished at a very early period of the era, while others
lived on to the time I have named, or even later.
But have we nothing better for this conclusion than an assumption of the
possibility, and a more or less probable conjecture? Yes; we have some
facts of interest to warrant it, or I should not have ventured to
introduce the subject in this work. There are facts,--besides the
admixture of human workmanship with the animal remains in undisturbed
deposits--direct evidence, not altogether shadowy, of the co-existence
of the extinct animals with living men.
And first, I would mention some circumstances bearing analogy to the
exhumation of the fresh Pachyderms of Siberia. Some years ago, a portion
of the leg of an Irish Elk, so-called, (_Megaceros hibernicus_,) with a
part of the tendons, skin, and hair upon it, was dug up with other
remains from a deposit on the estate of H. Grogan Morgan, Esq., of
Johnstown Castle, Wexford, and is now in that gentleman's possession.
This leg was exhibited, and formed the subject of a lecture at the time
by Mr Peile, veterinary surgeon, Dublin.
It has been ascertained that the marrow in some of the bones blazes like
a candle; that the cartilage and gelatine, so far from having been
destroyed, were not apparently altered by time.[24] Archdeacon Maunsell
actually made soup of the bones, and presented a portion thereof to the
Royal Dublin Society (whether they enjoyed it I have not heard; it must
have been "a little high," I fear). They are frequently used by the
peasantry for fuel. On the occasion of the rejoicings for the victory at
Waterloo, a bonfire was made of these bones, and it was observed that
they gave out as good a blaze as those of horses, often used for similar
purposes.[25]
Pepper, in his "History of Ireland," states that the ancient Irish used
to hunt a very large black deer, the milk of which they used as we do
that of the cow, and the flesh of which served them for food, and the
skin for clothing. This is a very remarkable record; and is confirmed by
some bronze tablets found by Sir William Betham, the inscriptions on
which attested that the ancient Irish fed upon the milk and flesh of a
great black deer.
According to the "Annals of the Four Masters," Niel Sedamin, a king of
Ireland before the Christian era, was so called because "the cows and
the female deer were alike milked in his reign." The art of taming the
wild deer and converting them into domestic cattle is said to have been
introduced by Flidisia, this monarch's mother. Deer are said to have
been used to carry stones and wood for Codocus when his monastery was
built, as also to carry timber to build the castle of a king of
Connaught. These may have been red deer, but as there is good proof
that the giant deer was really domesticated, it seems more likely that
such offices should have been performed by the latter than by the
former.
An interesting letter from the Countess of Moira, published in the
"Archæologia Britannica," gives an account of a human body found in
gravel under eleven feet of peat, soaked in the bog-water; it was in
good preservation, and completely clothed in antique garments of
deer-hair, conjectured to be that of the Giant Elk.
A skull of the same animal has been discovered in Germany in an ancient
drain, together with several urns and stone-hatchets. And in the museum
of the Royal Dublin Society there exists a fossil rib bearing evident
token of having been wounded by some sharp instrument which remained
long infixed in the wound, but had not penetrated so deep as to destroy
the creature's life. It was such a wound as the head of an arrow,
whether of flint or of metal, would produce.
In the year 1846, a very interesting corroboration of the opinion long
held by some that the great broad-horned Deer was domesticated by the
ancient Irish, was given by the discovery of a vast collection of bones
at Lough Gûr, near Limerick. The word Gûr is said to mean "an
assemblage," so that the locality is "the Lake of the Assemblage,"
commemorating perhaps the gathering of an army or some other host at the
spot. In the midst of the lake is an island, which is described as being
so completely surrounded with bones and skulls of animals "that one
would think the cattle of an entire nation must have been slaughtered to
procure so vast an assemblage."
The skulls are described as belonging to the following animals:--The
giant deer (females); a deer of inferior size; the stag; another species
of stag; the fallow deer; the broad-faced ox; the hollow-faced ox; the
long-faced ox; another species of ox; the common short-horned ox; the
goat; and the hog.
The principal points of interest centred in the Giant Deer or so-called
Irish Elk. The skulls of these, as of all the larger animals, "were
broken in by some sharp and heavy instrument, and in the same manner as
butchers of the present day slaughter cattle for our markets, and in
many cases the marrow-bones were broken across, as if to get at the
marrow."
Of course, if this was indubitable, the conclusion was inevitable, that
the Giant Deer was not only contemporary with man, but was domesticated
by him with other quadrupeds, and used for food. Professor Owen,
however, contended that the skulls of the Giant Deer were not females
but males, from which the horns had been forcibly removed, and that the
holes in the foreheads were made by the violent wrenching off of the
horns tearing away a portion of the frontal bone from which they grew.
In reply to this opinion, Mr H. D. Richardson of Dublin, whose personal
acquaintance with the relics of this noble species is peculiarly
extensive, shewed that certain variations of proportion on which the
learned Professor relied to prove the skulls to be male, were of no
such value, individual animals presenting great discrepancies in these
respects: that the total absence of cornuous peduncles from the sides of
the forehead, and of the elevated bony ridge, conclusively proved the
sex to be female, which was permanently destitute of horns; and that in
no case could it be said that the ridge was forced away, since the
violence was confined to a _small hole_ in the centre of the forehead.
To put the matter to test, Mr Richardson experimented on two perfect
male skulls. In the one instance the force was applied to the beam of
the horns, and the result was their fracture where they are united to
the peduncles. In the other case the force was applied to the peduncles
themselves, to ascertain whether it was possible to wrench them and the
ridge away from the face, when the consequence was, that the skull was
completely riven asunder. Indeed to any one who looks at the position of
the horns in this animal, and their implantation, it must be
self-evident that their violent removal must tear away the entire
forehead, and not leave a central hole. Mr Edward Newman who
subsequently examined the specimens speaks decidedly on this point:--"I
have not the least hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that the
fractures were the result of human hands, and were the cause of the
death of the animals. These two fractured skulls correspond too exactly
with each other, and with that of a bullock with which I compared them,
to have resulted from accident: the edges of the fractures wore the
appearance of having been coeval with the interment or submergence of
the skulls, and presented a very strikingly different appearance from a
fracture recently made, and which I had the opportunity of examining.
There were several skulls of the male of the same species, one bearing
enormous antlers, but none exhibiting the slightest trace of frontal
fracture."[26]
A circumstance of much importance is that these skulls were found in
company with those of many well-known domestic animals, as the ox, the
goat, and the hog. _These skulls were similarly fractured._ As it is
evident that _their_ demolition was produced by the butcher's pole-axe,
why not that of the elk-skulls?
"At the first cursory glance, it may appear somewhat strange that the
skulls of the males should invariably have been found entire, and that
even the recent discovery at Lough Gûr should form no exception.
"I do not, however, find any difficulty here. In the first place, we may
fairly suppose that males, like our bulls, were not equally prized as
food. In the second place, the size, as well as the position of the
antlers, would render it next to an impossibility to give the desired
blow with the pole-axe. In the third place, the greater strength and
thickness of the skull would almost to a certainty render the blow
unavailing; and in the fourth place, supposing the females domesticated,
and the occasional tenants of sheds and other buildings, we may well
imagine that the males were excluded from such buildings by the enormous
size of their antlers. Perhaps a few only of the males, as in our
cattle, were suffered to become adult, one male sufficing for many
females. Perhaps the males were allowed free range, the females only
being permitted at stated seasons to accompany them. In fine, the more
we investigate probabilities, the more we reason from present experience
and knowledge, the less difficulty shall we find in the way of believing
the gigantic deer of Ireland an animal coeval with man and subservient
to his uses."[27]
In a communication subsequently made to the _Zoologist_ by Mr
Richardson, he gives the following additional evidence:--"In the
collection of the late Mr Johnston, of Down, which had been left by his
uncle, an attorney, and in which everything was labelled with the
accuracy and precision of that profession, is a small brass spear, with
a piece of wood still in the socket, with a label, stating it to have
been found in a marl-pit, among the bones of a deer. An excise-officer
told me that he saw, found in a marl-pit, at Mentrim in Meath, the
skeleton of a deer, and a man, and a long knife: the latter, I believe,
is rather a short sword, now, I think, in the collection of Mr Petrie,
of Dublin, who told me that some such tradition had accompanied it into
his possession.... Dr Martin informs me that on the banks of the river
Suir, near Portland, Waterford, and on nearly every farm, are found,
near springs, spaces of frequently seventy feet in diameter, consisting
of stones, broken up as if for roads, and lying together in a mass.
These stones were evidently purposely broken, and all much of one size,
and are charred. These spaces are many feet in depth. The tradition
respecting them is current among the peasantry, that here in olden time,
a great deer was killed and baked in these stone-pits, the stones having
been previously heated like a kiln, and they also distinguish the animal
as the 'Irish Elk.' These places are called in Irish by a name
signifying the 'Buck's Den.'"
[Illustration: SPEARING THE ANCIENT ELK.]
From all these testimonies combined, can we hesitate a moment in
believing that the Giant Deer was an inhabitant of Ireland since its
colonisation by man? It seems to me that its extinction cannot have
taken place more than a thousand years ago. Perhaps at the very time
that Cæsar invaded Britain the Celts in the sister isle were milking and
slaughtering their female elks, domesticated in their cattlepens of
granite, and hunting the proud-antlered male with their flint arrows and
lances. It would appear, that the mode of hunting him was to chase and
terrify him into pools and swamps, such as the marl-pits then were;
that, having thus disabled him in the yielding bogs, and slain him, the
head was cut off, as of too little value to be worth the trouble of
dragging home; that the under jaws and tongue were cut off; and that
frequently the entire carcase was disjointed on the spot, the best parts
only being removed. This would account for the so frequent occurrence of
separate portions of the skeleton, and especially of skulls, in the
bog-earth. No doubt so large an animal would not long survive in a state
of freedom, after an island so limited in extent as Ireland became
peopled throughout; and supposing the females to have been
domesticated, it is quite conceivable that the difficulty or even danger
of capturing or domesticating the males, may have caused the species
soon to become extinct in captivity, when it no longer continued to
exist in a wild state. Thus we may perhaps account for the certainly
remarkable fact that no native Irish name has been recognised as
belonging to it;--remarkable, because the Irish tongue is particularly
rich in distinctive names for natural objects. There exists a very
curious ancient poem in that language which professes to enumerate the
whole fauna of the island. It is founded on the legend that Fian
MacCumhaill was made prisoner by Cormac MacArt, king of Erinn; that the
victor promised to give him freedom on condition that, as a ransom, a
pair of each wild animal found in Ireland were brought before him on the
green of Tara. Cailte MacRonain, the foster-brother of the captive
general undertook the task, and succeeded in bringing the collection
before the king within a twelvemonth; and in the poem, he is supposed to
narrate to St Patrick the detail and result of his enterprise. Of this
poem, which is considered to be as early as the ninth century, the
reader may like to see the following translation by Mr Eugene Curry,
containing the zoological portion:--
"I then went forth to search the lands,
To see if I could redeem my chief,
And soon returned to noble Tara,
With the ransom that Cormac required.
"I brought with me the fierce _Geilt_,[28]
And the tall _Grib_[29] with talons,
And the two Ravens of Fid-dá-Beann,
And the two Ducks of Loch Saileann.
"Two Foxes from Sliabh Cuilinn,
Two Wild Oxen[30] from Burren,
Two Swans from the dark wood of Gabhran,
And two Cuckoos from the wood of Fordrum.
"Two _Toghmalls_[31] from Fidh-Gaibhle,
Which is by the side of the two roads,
And two Otters after them,
From the brown-white rock of Dobhar.
"Two Gulls from Tralee hither,
Two _Ruilechs_[32] from Port Lairge (Waterford),
Four _Snags_[33] from the River Brosna,
Two Plovers from the rock of Dunán.
"Two _Echtachs_[34] from the lofty Echtghe,
Two Thrushes from Letter Longarie,
Two _Drenns_[35] from Dun Aife,
The two _Cainches_[36] of Corraivte.
"Two Herons from the hilly Corann,
The two _Errfiachs_[37] of Magh Fobhair,
The two Eagles of Carrick-na-Cloch,
Two Hawks from the wood of Caenach.
"Two Pheasants from Loch Meilge,
Two Water-hens from Loch Eirne,
Two Heath-hens from the Bog of Mafa,
Two Swift Divers from Dubh Loch.
"Two _Cricharans_[38] from Cualann,
Two Titmice from Magh Tualang,
Two Choughs from Gleann Gaibhle,
Two Sparrows from the Shannon.
"Two Cormorants from Ath Cliath,
Two _Onchus_[39] from Crotta Cliach,
Two Jackdaws from Druim Damh,
Two _Riabhogs_[40] from Leathan Mhaigh.
"Two Rabbits from Dumho Duinn,
Two wild Hogs from circular Cnoghbha,
Two _Peatáns_[41] from Creat Roe,
Two wild Boars[42] from green-sided Tara.
"Two Pigeons out of Ceis Corann,
Two Blackbirds out of Leitir Finnchoill,
Two black Birds (?) from the strand of Dabhan,
Two Roebucks from Luachair Deaghaidh.
"Two _Fereidhins_[43] from Ath Loich,
Two Fawns from Moin mor,
Two Bats out of the Cave of Cnoghbha,
Two Pigs[44] from the lands of Ollarbha.
"Two Swallows out of Sidh Buidhe,
Two _Iaronns_[45] from the wood of Luadraidh,
Two _Geisechtachs_[46] from Magh Mall,
Two charming Robins from Cnamh Choill.
"Two Woodcocks from Coillruadh,
Two Crows from Lenn Uar,
Two _Bruacharans_[47] from Sliabh-da-Ean,
Two Barnacle-Geese from Turloch Bruigheoil.
"Two _Naescans_[48] from Dun Daighre,
Two Yellow-ammers from the brink of Bairne,
Two _Spireogs_[49] from Sliabh Cleath,
Two Grey Mice from Limerick.
"Two Corncrakes from the Banks of Shannon,
Two Wagtails from the brinks of Birra,
Two Curlews from the Harbour of Galway,
Two _Sgreachógs_[50] from Muirtheimhne.
"Two _Geilt Glinnes_[51] from Glenn-a-Smoil,
Two Jackdaws from great Ath Mogha,
Two fleet _Onchus_[52] from Loch Con,
Two Cats out of the Cave of Cruachain.
"Two Goats from Sith Gabhran,
Two Pigs[53] of the Pigs of Mac Lir,
A Ram and Ewe both round and red,
I brought with me from Aengus.
"I brought with me a Stallion and a Mare,
From the beautiful stud of Manannan,
A Bull and a white Cow from Druim Cain,
Which were given me by Muirn Munchain."
No _known_ allusion occurs in this poem to the Giant Deer.[54] First,
however, we must remember that no small number of the animals mentioned
are quite unrecognisable; and that of those names to which an
explanation is given, many are probably incorrectly rendered. Secondly,
if it could be absolutely shewn that no allusion exists to that fine
beast, it would not at all disprove its existence a thousand years
before. Supposing that the _Megaceros_ became extinct soon after the
colonisation of Ireland, and that this was several centuries before the
Christian era, the distinctive name by which it had been known might
well have died out and become extinct also, among a people unacquainted
with letters. Or if a dim tradition of the animal and of its name still
lingered here and there, it might well be omitted from a catalogue which
professed to give the creatures actually collected in a living state at
a given period. It would have been interesting to have been able to
identify the Great Elk, but its introduction would have been a glaring
anachronism.
The enumeration of nearly a hundred and sixty quadrupeds and birds
either indigenous to or naturalised in Ireland at so early a period,
possesses, I say, a peculiar interest.
If the editor's suggestion is correct, that the _Echtach_ was a bovine
animal, then we have three distinct mentions of this family in the
poem,--the Wild Oxen, the Echtachs, and the Bull and White Cow. The
second and third of these were probably domesticated animals; the first
one expressly "Wild." Now at least five distinct species of Oxen are
known to have inhabited Europe and the British Isles during the later
periods of the Tertiary era, which have been named respectively, _Bison
priscus_, _Bos primigenius_, _frontosus_ and _longifrons_, and _Ovibos
moschatus_. Of these, skulls of _Bos frontosus_ and _B. longifrons_ have
been dug up in some numbers in Ireland. Some of these bear, in the
perforation of the forehead, evident proof of having been slaughtered
_secundum artem_, and therefore of having been domesticated. But one
large skull of the _longifrons_ type, now in the Museum of the Royal
Irish Academy, has a cut in the forehead, into which can be accurately
fitted several of the narrow bronze "celts," or arrow-heads so
frequently dug up in Ireland; a pretty fair proof that this animal was
killed by the hunter's arrow, and was therefore wild.
No bovine animals of the true taurine race are now known to exist in an
aboriginally wild state; but at the epoch of our earliest historical
knowledge of central and western Europe it was far otherwise. Cæsar,
describing, under the name of _Urus_, certain wild oxen of the great
Hercynian forest, says, "These Uri are little inferior to elephants in
size, but are bulls in their nature, colour, and figure. Great is their
strength, and great their swiftness, nor do they spare man or beast when
once they have caught sight of him. These, when trapped in pitfalls, the
hunters unsparingly kill. The youths, exercising themselves by this sort
of hunting, are hardened by the toil, and those among them who have
killed most, bringing with them the horns, as testimonials, acquire
great praise. But these Uri cannot be habituated to man, nor made
tractable, not even when taken young. The great size of the horns, as
well as the form and quality of them, differs much from those of our
oxen."
It is probable that this race extended widely over Europe, and even into
Asia. Herodotus mentions Macedonian wild oxen, with exceedingly large
([Greek: hypermegathia]) horns; and Philip of Macedon killed a wild bull
in Mount Orbela, which had made great havoc, and produced much terror
among the inhabitants; its spoils he hung up in the Temple of Hercules.
The Assyrian artists delighted to sculpture on the royal bas-reliefs of
Nineveh the conquest of the wild bull by the prowess of their Nimrod
monarchs, and the figures, in their minute anatomical characters, well
agree with the descriptions and remains of the European _Urus_. The
large forest that surrounded ancient London was infested with _boves
sylvestres_ among other wild beasts, and it is probable that these were
_Uri_. The legendary exploit of Guy, Earl of Warwick, in freeing the
neighbourhood from a terrible dun cow, whether historically true or not,
shews the existence of formidable wild bovines in the heart of England,
and the terror they inspired among the people. The family of Turnbull,
in Scotland, are traditionally said to owe their patronymic to a hero
who turned a wild bull from Robert the Bruce, when it had attacked him
while hunting.
What has become of the terrible Uri which lived in Europe at the
commencement of the Christian era? Advancing civilisation has rooted
them out, so that no living trace of them remains, unless the
cream-white breed which is preserved in a semi-wild state in some of our
northern parks be their representatives; or, as is not improbable, their
blood may still circulate in our domestic oxen.
Yet there is no doubt of the identity of a species found abundantly in
Britain in the Tertiary deposits, and named by Owen _Bos primigenius_,
with the Urus of Cæsar. This fossil bull was as certainly contemporary
in this island with the elephant, and the hyena, and the baboon, and,
strange to say, with the reindeer, and the musk-ox, too--thus combining
a tropical, a temperate, and an arctic fauna in our limited island at
the same period! What a strange climate it must have been to suit them
all!
Professor Nilsson, who has paid great attention to fossil oxen, mentions
a skull of this species which must have belonged to an animal more than
twelve feet in length from the nape to the root of the tail, and six
feet and a half in height. Again, the skull of a cow in the British
Museum, figured by Professor Owen, measures thirty inches from the crown
to the tips of the jaws! What a beast must this have been! Would not the
slaughter of such a "Dun Cow" as this in single combat have been an
exploit worthy of a doughty earl?
That this ancient fossil bull was really contemporary with man in
Scandinavia is proved by evidence which is irrespective of the question
of its identity with Cæsar's Urus. For one of Professor Nilsson's
specimens "bears on its back a palpable mark of a wound from a javelin.
Several celebrated anatomists and physiologists, among whom," he says,
"I need only mention the names of John Müller, of Berlin, and Andreas
Retzius, of Stockholm, have inspected this skeleton, and are unanimous
in the opinion that the hole in question upon the backbone is the
consequence of a wound, which, during the life of the animal, was made
by the hand of man. The animal must have been very young, probably only
a calf, when it was wounded. The huntsman who cast the javelin must have
stood before it. It was yet young when it died, probably not more than
three or four years old."
We may, then, assume as certain that the vast _Bos primigenius_ of
Western Europe lived as a wild animal contemporaneously with man; and as
almost certain (assuming its identity with the _Urus_) that it continued
to be abundant as late as the Christian era.
The _Bos frontosus_ is a middling-sized bovine. "Its remains," says
Professor Nilsson, "are found in turf-bogs in Southern Scandinavia, and
in such a state as plainly shews that they belonged to a more ancient
period than that in which tame cattle existed in Sweden. This species
lived in Scandinavia contemporaneously with the _Bos primigenius_, and
the _Bison Europæus_.... If ever it was tamed, and thereby in the course
of time contributed to form some of the tame races of cattle, it must
have been the small-horned, often hornless, breed, which is to be found
in the mountains of Norway, and which has a high protuberance between
the setting-on of the horns above the nape."
This species occurs in a fossil state in some numbers in Ireland; it has
also been found in England. It is by some supposed to be the origin of,
or, at least, to have contributed blood to, the middling Highland races
with high occiput, and small horns.
There is more certainty of the co-existence of the small _B. longifrons_
with man. Some of the evidence I have already adduced. "Within a few
years," says a trustworthy authority, "we have read in one of the
scientific periodicals,--but have just now sought in vain for the
notice,--of a quantity of bones that were dug up in some part of
England, together with other remains of what seemed to be the relics of
a grand feast, held probably during the Roman domination of Britain,
for, if we mistake not, some Roman coins were found associated with
them. _There were skulls_ and other remains of _Bos longifrons_ quite
undistinguishable in form from the antique fossil, whether wild or
domesticated, which, of course, remains a question."[55]
Professor Owen conjectures that this species may have contributed to
form the present small shaggy Highland and Welsh cattle,--the kyloes and
runts; and a similar breed in the northern parts of Scania may have had
a similar origin.
In the _Bison priscus_, the fossil remains of which occur in many parts
of Europe, and more sparsely in Great Britain,[56] we have an example of
a noble animal, which, contemporary with all those which have been
engaging our attention, survives to the present hour, but is dying out,
and would have long ago been extinguished, probably, but for the
fostering influence of human conservation. For the species is considered
as absolutely identical with the _Bison Europæus_ of modern zoology, the
Bison or Wisent of the Germans, the Aurochs of the Prussians, the Zubr
of the Poles, that formidable creature, which is maintained by the Czar
in an ever-diminishing herd in the vast forests of Lithuania,[57] and
which, perhaps, still lingers in the fastnesses of the Caucasus. This,
the largest, or at least the most massive of all existing quadrupeds,
after the great Pachyderms, roamed over Germany in some numbers as late
as the era of Charlemagne. Considerably later than this it is reckoned
among the German beasts of chase, for in the _Niebelungen Lied_, a poem
of the twelfth century, it is said,
"Dar nach schlouch er schiere, einen wisent und einen elch,
Starcher ure viere, und einen grimmen schelch."
"After this he straightway slew a bison and an elk,
Of the strong uri four, and a single fierce schelch."[58]
It is a formidable beast, standing six feet high at the shoulders, where
it is protected by a thick and profuse mane. Specimens have been known
to reach a ton in weight. It manifests an invincible repugnance to the
ox.
There are several other animals of note which, like the Bison, were once
common inhabitants of these islands, but have long been extinct here,
though more genial circumstances have preserved their existence on the
continent of Europe. Of the great Cave Bear, no evidence of its period
exists, that I know of, except that which may be deduced from the
commixture of its remains with those of other animals of whose recent
date we have proof. But there is another kind of Bear, whose relics in a
fossil state are not uncommon in the Tertiary deposits, viz., the common
Black Bear (_Ursus arctos_) of Europe.
This savage animal must have early succumbed to man. The "Triads"[59]
mention bears as living here before the Kymri came. The Roman poets knew
of their existence here: Martial speaks of the robber Laureolus being
exposed on the cross to the fangs of the _Caledonian_ Bear; and Claudian
alludes to British bears. The Emperor Claudius, on his return to Rome
after the conquest of this island, exhibited, as trophies, combats of
British bears in the arena. In the Penitential of Archbishop Egbert,
said to have been compiled about A.D. 750, bears are mentioned as
inhabiting the English forests, but they must have gradually become
rare, for the chase-laws of Canute, at the beginning of the eleventh
century, are silent about them. In Doomsday Book, we find incidental
notice of this animal, for the city of Norwich is said to have been
required to furnish a bear annually to Edward the Confessor, together
with "six dogs for the bear,"--no doubt for baiting him. This seems to
have been the latest trace on record of the bear in Britain; unless the
tradition may compete with it, which states that one of the Gordon
family was empowered by the king of Scotland to carry three bears' heads
on his banner, as a reward for his prowess in slaying a fierce bear.
In Ireland it seems to have become extinct even yet earlier. Bede
says the only ravenous animals in his day were the wolf and the fox;
Donatus, who died in A.D. 840, distinctly says it was not a native
of the island in his time; and Geraldus Cambrensis does not enumerate
it as known in the twelfth century. Neither is it included in the
ransom-beasts of Cailte's collection. Yet a native Irish name for the
bear--Mathghambain--occurs in an old glossary[60] in the Library of
Trinity College, Dublin; and the late Wm. Thomson says that a tradition
is current of its having once been an Irish animal; and it is associated
with the wolf as a native beast in the stories handed down from
generation to generation to the present time.
The wolf, however, survived in both islands to a much later era. In the
days of the Heptarchy it was a terrible pest; King Edgar commuted the
punishment of certain offences into a requisition for a fixed number of
wolves' tongues; and he converted a heavy tax on one of the Welsh
princes into an annual tribute of three hundred wolves' heads. These
laws continued to the time of Edward I., when the increasing scarcity of
the animal doubtless caused them to fall into disuse. Mr Topham, in his
Notes to Somerville's "Chase," says, that it was in the wolds of
Yorkshire that a price was last set on a wolf's head. The last record of
their occurring in formidable numbers in England is in 1281; but for
three centuries after this, the mountains and forests of Scotland
harboured them; for Hollinshed reports that in 1577 the wolves were very
troublesome to the flocks of that country. Nor were they entirely
destroyed out of this island till about a century afterwards, when the
last wolf fell in Lochaber, by the hand of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel.
In Ireland the last wolf was slain in 1710.
Thus here we are able to lay our finger on the exact dates when a large
and rapacious species of animal actually became extinct so far as the
British Isles are concerned. And if the species had been confined in its
geographical limits, as many other species of animals are, to one group
of islands, we should know the precise date of its absolute extinction.
The Beaver was once an inhabitant of British rivers. Its remains are
found in Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire, and elsewhere, associated
with the other Mammalia of the fresh-water deposits and caves, but not
in any abundance. No record of its actual existence, however, in these
counties exists, nor anywhere else but in Wales and Scotland, whose
mountain streams and rugged ravines afforded it shelter till after the
Norman Conquest. It was very rare even then, and for a hundred years
before; for the laws of Howel Dda, the Welsh king, who died in 948, in
determining the value of peltry, fix the price of the beaver's skin at a
hundred and twenty pence, when the skins of the stag, the wolf, the fox,
and the otter, were worth only eightpence each, that of the white weasel
or ermine at twelvepence, and that of the marten, at twenty-four pence.
The appropriate epithet of Broad-tail (Llostllyddan) was given it by the
Welsh. Giraldus Cambrensis, who travelled through Wales in 1188, gives,
in his Itinerary, a short account of the beaver, but states that the
river Teivy in Cardiganshire, and one other river in Scotland, were the
only places in Great Britain, where it was then found. In all
probability it did not long survive that century, for no subsequent
notice of it as a British animal is extant. Tradition, however, still
preserves the remembrance of its presence in those indelible records,
names of places. "Two or three waters in the Principality," says
Pennant, "still bear the name of _Llyn yr afangc_,--the Beaver Lake....
I have seen two of their supposed haunts: one in the stream that runs
through Nant Francon; the other in the river Conwy, a few miles above
Llanrwst; and both places, in all probability, had formerly been crossed
by beaver-dams."
If, as naturalists of the highest eminence believe, there is specific
difference between the beaver of Europe and that of America, then we may
say that our species is fast passing away from the earth. A few colonies
yet linger along the banks of the Danube, the Weser, the Rhone and the
Euphrates, but they consist of few individuals, ever growing fewer; and
the value of their fur exciting cupidity, they cannot probably resist
much longer the exterminating violence of man.
The causes which led to the extinction of these animals in our islands
are then obvious, and are thus playfully touched by the late James
Wilson:--"The beaver might have carried on business well enough, in his
own quiet way, although frequently incommoded by the love of peltry on
the part of a hat-wearing people; but it is clear that no man with a
small family and a few respectable farm servants, could either permit a
large and hungry wolf to be continually peeping at midnight through the
keyhole of the nursery, or allow a brawny bruin to snuff too frequently
under the kitchen door (after having hugged the watch-dog to death) when
the servant-maids were at supper. The extirpation then of at least two
of these quondam British species became 'a work of necessity and mercy,'
and might have been tolerated even on a Sunday, (between sermons,)
especially as naturalists have it still in their power to study the
habits of similar wild beasts, by no means yet extinct, in the
neighbouring countries of France and Germany."[61]
Perhaps the example of recent extinction most popularly known is that of
the Dodo, a very remarkable bird, which about two centuries ago existed
in considerable abundance, in the isles of Mauritius, Bourbon, and
Rodriguez. It was a rather large fowl, incapable of rising from the
ground, by reason of the imperfect development of its wings, of massive,
uncouth figure, predisposed to fatness, and noted for the sapidity of
its flesh. Two skulls and two unmatched feet of this strange bird are
preserved in European museums; and these shew that its nearest
affinities were with the pigeon-tribe, of which we know some species of
terrestrial habits, but none approaching this bird in its absolute
confinement to the earth.
In the reports of numerous voyagers who visited these islands from the
end of the fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, we have
many accounts of the appearance and habits of this bird, evidently
sketched from the life. Some of the descriptions, as also the figures by
which they are illustrated, are quaint enough; as, for example, that
graphic sketch hit off by old Sir Thomas Herbert, who saw the bird in
his travels in 1634:--
"The Dodo," he says, "comes first to our description. Here and in
Dygarrois (and nowhere else that I c^d ever see or heare of) is
generated the Dodo. (A Portuguize name it is, and has reference to
her simplenes) a bird which for shape and rareness might be call'd
a Ph{oe}nix (wer't in Arabia); her body is round and extreame fat,
her slow pace begets that corpulencie; few of them weigh lesse than
fifty pound: better to the eye than the stomack: greasie appetites
may perhaps commend them, but, to the indifferently curious,
nourishment, but prove offensive. Let's take her picture: her
visage darts forth melancholy, as sensible of nature's injurie in
framing so great and massive a body to be directed by such small
and complementall wings, as are unable to hoise her from the
ground, serving only to prove her a bird; which otherwise might be
doubted of: her head is variously drest, the one halfe hooded with
downy blackish feathers; the other perfectly naked; of a whitish
hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it; her bill is very
howked and bends downwards, the thrill or breathing place is in the
midst of it; from which part to the end, the colour is a light
greene mixt with a pale yellow; her eyes be round and small, and
bright as diamonds; her cloathing is of finest downe, such as ye
see in goslins; her trayne is (like a China beard) of three or
foure short feythers; her legs thick, and black, and strong; her
tallons or pounces sharp; her stomack fiery hot, so as stones and
yron are easilie digested in it; in that and shape, not a little
resembling the Africk oestriches: but so much, as for their more
certain dyfference I dare to give thee (with two others) her
representation."[62]
It is pretty certain that a living specimen was about the same time
exhibited in England. Sir Hamon L'Estrange tells us distinctly that he
_saw_ it. His original MS. is preserved in the British Museum, and with
some blanks caused by the injury of time, of no great consequence, reads
as follows:--
"About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture
of a strange fowl hong out upon a cloth.
vas and myselfe with one or two more Gen. in
company went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a
greate fowle somewhat bigger than the largest Turky Cock and so
legged and footed but stouter and thicker and of a more erect
shape, coloured before like the breast of a yong Cock Fesan and on
the back of dunn or deare coulour. The keeper called it a Dodo and
in the ende of a chimney in the chamber there lay an heap of large
pebble stones whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg
as nutmegs and the keeper told us shee eats them conducing to
digestion and though I remember not how farre the keeper was
questioned therein yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast
them all agayne."[63]
It is probable that this very specimen passed into the museum of
Tradescant, who, in the Catalogue of "The Collection of Rarities
preserved at Lambeth," dated 1656, mentions the following: "Dodar from
the Island Mauritius: it is not able to flie being so bigg." Willoughby
the ornithologist, a most unexceptionable testimony, says that he saw
this specimen in Tradescant's museum: it is mentioned also by
others;--as by Llhwyd in 1684, and by Hyde in 1700. It passed, with the
rest of the Tradescant Collection, to Oxford, and thus became part of
the Ashmolean Museum,--and being in a decayed condition, was ordered to
be destroyed by the authorities, who had no apprehension of its value,
in 1755. The skull and one foot, however, were preserved, and are still
in the Museum at Oxford. Remains of the Dodo have been dug up in the
Mauritius, and are in the Paris Museum, and in that of the Zoological
Society of London. The bird certainly does not exist there now, nor in
either of the neighbouring islands.
In the British Museum there is a fine original painting, once the
property of George Edwards, the celebrated bird painter, representing
the Dodo surrounded by other minor birds and reptiles. Edwards states
that "it was drawn in Holland, from a living bird brought from St
Maurice's Island, in the East Indies. It was the property of Sir Hans
Sloane at the time of his death, and afterwards becoming my property, I
deposited it in the British Museum as a great curiosity."
Professor Owen has discovered another original figure of this
interesting form in Savary's painting of "Orpheus and the Beasts," at
the Hague. The figure, though small, displays all the characteristic
peculiarities, and agrees well with Edwards' painting, while evincing
that it was copied from the living bird.
It is possible that there were two species of Dodo; which would explain
certain discrepancies in the descriptions of observers. At all events we
have here one, if not more, conspicuous animal absolutely extinguished
within the last two hundred years.
Just about a century ago a great animal disappeared from the ocean,
which, according to Owen, was contemporary with the fossil elephant and
rhinoceros of Siberia and England. Steller, a Russian voyager and
naturalist, discovered the creature, afterward called _Stelleria_ by
Cuvier, in Behring's Straits; a huge, unwieldy whale-like animal, one of
the marine pachyderms, allied to the Manatee, but much larger, being
twenty-five feet long, and twenty in circumference. Its flesh was good
for food, and from its inertness and incapacity for defence, the race
was extirpated in a few years. Steller first discovered the species in
1741, and the last known specimen was killed in 1768. It is believed to
be quite extinct, as it has never been met with since.
Nearly a century ago, Sonnerat found in Madagascar, a curious animal,
(_Cheiromys_,) which in structure seems to connect the monkeys with the
squirrels. So rare was it there that even the natives viewed it with
curiosity as an animal altogether unknown to them; and, from their
exclamations of astonishment rather than from its cry, the French
naturalist is said to have conferred upon it the name of Aye-aye, by
which it is now known. _Not a specimen, as I believe, has been seen
since Sonnerat's day_, so that, if not actually obliterated, the species
must be on the verge of extinction.
Species are dying out in our own day. I have already cited the
interesting case of the Moho, that fine Gallinule of New Zealand, of
which a specimen--probably the last of its race,--was obtained by Mr
Walter Mantell; and that of the Káureke, the badger-like quadruped of
the same islands, which was formerly domesticated by the Maoris, but
which now cannot be found.
The Samoa Isles in the Pacific recently possessed a large and handsome
kind of pigeon, of richly-coloured plumage, which the natives called
_Manu-mea_, but to which modern naturalists have given the name of
_Didunculus strigirostris_. It was, both by structure and habit,
essentially a ground pigeon, but not so exclusively but that it fed, and
roosted too, according to Lieut. Walpole, among the branches of tall
trees. Mr T. Peale, the naturalist of the U. S. Exploring Expedition,
who first described it, informs us that according to the tradition of
the natives, it once abounded; but some years ago these persons, like
more civilised folks, had a strong desire to make pets of cats, and
found, by means of whale-ships, opportunities of procuring a supply; but
the consequence of the introduction of "pussy,"--for under this familiar
old-country title were the exotic tabbies introduced--was the rapid
diminution of the handsome _Manu-mea_. Pussy did not fancy yams and
taro--the vegetable diet on which the natives regaled--and took to the
woods and mountains to search for something better. There she met with
the feeble-winged _Didunculus_ scratching the soft earth for seeds, and
with a purr and a mew soon scraped acquaintance with the stranger. Pussy
declared she loved him well, and so she did--too well, in fact; she felt
"as if she could eat him up,"--_and did_. The news soon spread among the
tabbies that there were sweet birds in the woods, and the result is the
almost total disappearance of poor _Manu-mea_. Like the Dodo, it has
ceased to be, but at the hand of a more ignominious foe. The Samoan may
truly say to his former pet, "_Cecidisti, O Manu-mea, non manu meâ, sed
ungue felino_." So rare had the bird become, that during the stay of the
Expedition only three specimens could be procured, and of these two were
lost by shipwreck. I do not know whether another has been met with
since. Probably they are all gone; for that was twenty years ago.
When Norfolk Island,--that tiny spot in the Southern Ocean since so
stained with human crime and misery--was first discovered, its tall and
teeming forests were tenanted by a remarkable Parrot with a very long
and slender hooked beak, which lived upon the honey of flowers. It was
named _Nestor productus_. When Mr Gould visited Australia in his
researches into the ornithology of those antipodeal regions, he found
the Nestor Parrot absolutely limited to Philip Island, a tiny satellite
of Norfolk Island, whose whole circumference is not more than five
miles in extent. The war of extermination had been so successful in the
larger island that, with the exception of a few specimens preserved in
cages, not one was believed to survive. Since then its last retreat has
been harried, and Mr J. H. Gurney thus writes the dirge of the last of
the Nestors:--
"I have seen the man who exterminated the _Nestor productus_ from Philip
Island, he having shot the last of that species left on the island; he
informs me that they rarely made use of their wings, except when closely
pressed; their mode of progression was by the upper mandible; and
whenever he used to go to the island to shoot, he would invariably find
them on the ground, except one, which used to be sentry on one of the
lower branches of the _Araucaria excelsa_, and the instant any person
landed, they would run to those trees and haul themselves up by the
bill, and, as a matter of course, they would there remain till they were
shot, or the intruder had left the island. He likewise informed me that
there was a large species of hawk that used to commit great havoc
amongst them, but what species it was he could not tell me."[64]
I have before mentioned that Professor Owen had recognised the species
in fossil skulls from New Zealand, associated with remains of
_Dinornis_, _Palapteryx_, and _Notornis_. Thus it appears that the
long-billed Parrot is an ancient race, whose extreme decrepitude has
just survived to our time;--that it first became extinct from New
Zealand, then from Norfolk Island, and lastly from Philip Island. Peace
to its ashes!
Mr Yarrell, in his "History of British Birds,"[65] commences his account
of one of them in these words:--"The Great Auk is a very rare British
Bird, and but few instances are recorded of its capture. The natives in
the Orkneys informed Mr Bullock, on his tour through these islands
several years ago, that only one male had made its appearance for a long
time, which had regularly visited Papa Westra for several seasons. The
female, which the natives call the queen of the Auks, was killed just
before Mr Bullock's arrival. The king or male, Mr Bullock had the
pleasure of chasing for several hours in a six-oared boat, but without
being able to kill him, for though he frequently got near him, so expert
was the bird in its natural element that it appeared impossible to shoot
him. The rapidity with which he pursued his course under water was
almost incredible. About a fortnight after Mr Bullock had left Papa
Westra, this male bird was obtained and sent him, and at the sale of his
collection, was purchased for the British Museum, where it is still
carefully preserved."
This fine bird, which was larger than a goose, is believed to be
extinct. Mr Bullock's specimen was taken in 1812; another was captured
at St Kilda in 1822, another was picked up dead near Lundy Island in
1829, and yet another was taken in 1834, off the coast of Waterford.
On the north coast of Europe the bird is equally rare; not more than
two or three, at the utmost, having been procured during the present
century. During that period, however, it has haunted one or two
breeding-rocks on the south coast of Iceland, in some abundance. In the
years 1830 and 1831, as many as twenty-seven were obtained there, and
from that time till 1840, about ten more. The last birds obtained on the
Iceland coast were a pair, which were shot on their nest in 1844. The
last taken in any locality, so far as is known, was one shot in 1848, by
a peasant, on the Island of Wardoe, within the Arctic Circle.
Two centuries ago, the Great Auk was not uncommon on the shores of New
England; and, off the great fishing-banks of Newfoundland, it appears to
have been very abundant. "Its appearance was always hailed by the
mariner approaching that desolate coast as the first indication of his
having reached soundings on the fishing-banks. During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries these waters, as well as the Iceland and Faroe
coasts, were annually visited by hundreds of ships from England, France,
Spain, Holland, and Portugal; and these ships actually were accustomed
to provision themselves with the bodies and eggs of these birds, which
they found breeding in myriads on the low islands off the coast of
Newfoundland. Besides the fresh birds consumed by the ship's crew, many
tons were salted down for further use. In the space of an hour, these
old voyagers tell us, they could fill thirty boats with the birds. It
was only necessary to go on shore, armed with sticks to kill as many as
they chose. The birds were so stupid that they allowed themselves to be
taken up, on their own proper element, by boats under sail; and it is
even said that on putting out a plank it was possible to drive the Great
Auks up and out of the sea into boats. On land the sailors formed low
enclosures of stones, into which they drove the Penguins [or Auks], and,
as they were unable to fly, kept them there enclosed till they were
wanted for the table."
"In 1841, a distinguished Norwegian naturalist, (too early, alas! lost
to science,) Peter Stuwitz, visited Tunk Island, or Penguin Island,
lying to the east of Newfoundland. Here, on the north-west shore of the
island, he found enormous heaps of bones and skeletons of the Great Auk,
lying either in exposed masses or slightly covered by the earth. On this
side of the island the rocks slope gradually down to the shore; and here
were still standing the stone fences and enclosures into which the birds
were driven for slaughter."[66]
It is just possible that the bird may yet haunt the inaccessible coast
of East Greenland, but ships sailing between that country and Iceland
never meet with it at sea. Nor did Graah observe it during his toilsome
researches east of Cape Farewell. The numerous fishing craft that every
season crowd the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador forbid the notion
that it yet lingers there; for the great market-value set upon the bird
and its eggs for collections would prevent its existence there from
being overlooked. The numerous Polar voyages of discovery, and the
annual fleets of whalers, would certainly have discovered it, if it
still haunted the more northern regions. It is possible that a few
isolated individuals may still survive; but it is the habit of the bird,
as of most sea-fowl, to breed in society in bare seaward rocks, and the
circumstance that no breeding station is known to be now frequented by
the Great Auk renders it but too probable that it also must be classed
among the species that were.
The interest attached to this now extinct bird has induced some
correspondents of the _Zoologist_ to attempt an enumeration of the
specimens, both of the bird and of its eggs, (which from their great
size, as well as from their rarity, have always had a value with
collectors,) known to be preserved in cabinets. The result is that
English collections contain 14 birds and 23 eggs; those of continental
Europe, 11 birds and 20 eggs; the United States, 1 bird and 2 eggs:--the
total being 26 birds and 45 eggs.
It would appear that the rock off the south of Iceland which was the
chief breeding resort of the Great Auk, and which from that circumstance
bore the name or "Geir-fulga Sker," sank to the level of the sea during
a volcanic disturbance in or about the year 1830. "Such disappearance of
the fit and favourable breeding-places of the _Alca impennis_," observes
Professor Owen, "must form an important element in its decline towards
extinction." One might think that there would be rocks enough left for
the birds to choose a fresh station; but really we do not know what are
the elements of choice in such a case: some peculiarities exist which
make one particular rock to be selected by sea-fowl, when others
apparently to us as suitable are quite neglected; but we do not know
what they are. Possibly when Geir-fulga Sker sank, there was no other
islet fit to supply the blank. Possibly, too, the submersion took place
during the breeding season, drowning the eggs or young. If this was the
case, it would indeed be "a heavy blow and great discouragement" to the
dwindling Alcine nation.
Mr Darwin speaks of a large wolf-like Fox (_Canis antarcticus_) which at
the time of his voyage was common to both the Falkland Islands, but
absolutely confined to them. He says, "As far as I am aware, there is no
other instance in any part of the world, of so small a mass of broken
land, distant from a continent, possessing so large an aboriginal
quadruped peculiar to itself. Their numbers have rapidly decreased; they
are already banished from that half of the island which lies to the
eastward of the neck of land between St Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound.
Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly
settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the Dodo, as
an animal which has perished from the face of the earth."[67]
The Musk Ox (_Ovibos moschatus_), a long-haired ruminant, resembling
what you would suppose a cross between a bull and a sheep might
be,--formerly an inhabitant of Britain with the Elephant and the Hyena,
but now found only on the polar margins of North America,--is becoming
very scarce; and it is probable that before long its last representative
will leave its bones with those of the lamented Franklin and his
companions.
From the more perishable character of vegetable tissues we have far less
data for determining the extinction of plant species; but analogy
renders it highly probable that these also have died out, and are dying
in a corresponding ratio with animals. I am not aware that a single
example can be adduced of a plant that has certainly ceased to exist
during the historic era. But Humboldt mentions a very remarkable tree in
Mexico, of which it is believed only a single specimen remains in a
state of nature. It is the Hand-tree (_Cheirostemon platanoides_), a
sterculaceous plant with large plane-like leaves, and with the anthers
connected together in such a manner as to resemble a hand or claw rising
from the beautiful purplish-red blossoms. "There is in all the Mexican
free States only one individual remaining, one single primeval stem of
this wonderful genus. It is supposed not to be indigenous, but to have
been planted by a king of Toluca about five hundred years ago. I found
that the spot where the Arbol de las Manitas stands is 8825 feet above
the level of the sea. Why is there only one tree of the kind? Whence did
the kings of Toluca obtain the young tree, or the seed? It is equally
enigmatical that Montezuma should not have possessed one of these trees
in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and Iztapalapan,
which were used as late as by Philip the Second's physician, Hernandez,
and of which gardens traces still remain; and it appears no less
striking that the Hand-tree should not have found a place among the
drawings of subjects connected with Natural History, which Nezahual
Coyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be made half a century before the
arrival of the Spaniards."
There is an example of this interesting plant growing in one of the
conservatories at Kew, but I do not know whence it was obtained. It has
been asserted that it grows wild in the forests of Guatemala.
Leaving plants out of consideration from lack of adequate data, we find
that a considerable number of species of animals have certainly ceased
to exist since man inhabited the globe. There have been, doubtless, many
others that have shared the same fate, which we know nothing about. It
is only within the last hundred years that we have had anything
approaching to an acquaintance with the living fauna of the earth; yet,
during that time some seven or eight creatures we know have been
extinguished. Fully half of these,--the Auk, the Didunculus, the
Notornis, and the Nestor,--within the last ten years! It would really
seem as if the more complete and comprehensive an acquaintance with the
animals of the world became, the more frequently this strange phenomenon
of expiring species was presented to us. Perhaps it is not extravagant
to suppose that--including all the invertebrate animals, the countless
hosts of insects, and all the recondite forms that dwell in the recesses
of the ocean--a species fades from existence every year. All the
examples that have been given were either Mammalia or Birds, (_the
Colossochelys_ only excepted:) now these, though the most conspicuous
and best known, are almost the least populous classes of living beings.
There is no reason whatever for concluding that the law of mortality of
species does not extend to all the other classes, vertebrate and
invertebrate, in an equal ratio, so that my estimate will appear, I
think, a very moderate one. Yet it is a startling thought, and one which
the mind does not entertain without a measure of revulsion, that the
passing of every century in the world's history has left its fauna
_minus_ a hundred species of animals that were denizens of the earth
when it began. I was going to say "left the fauna so much _poorer_;" but
that I am not sure of. The term would imply that the blanks are not
filled up; and that, I repeat, I am not sure of. Probability would
suggest that new forms are continually created to supply the lack of
deceased ones; and it may be that _some_, at least, of the creatures
ever and anon described as new to science, especially in old and
well-searched regions, may be newly called into being, as well as newly
discovered. It may be so, I say; I have no evidence that it is so,
except the probability of analogy; we know that the rate of mortality
among _individuals_ of a species, speaking generally, is equalled by the
rate of birth, and we may suppose this balance of life to be paralleled
when the unit is a species, and not an individual. If the Word of God
contained anything either in statement or principle contrary to such a
supposition, I would not entertain it for a moment, but I do not know
that it does. I do not know that it is anywhere implied that God created
no more after the six days' work was done. His Sabbath-rest having been
broken by the incoming of sin, we know from John v. 17, that He
continued to work without interruption; and we may fairly conclude that
progressive creation was included as a part of that unceasing work.
I know not whether my readers will take the same concern as I do in this
subject of the dying-out of species, but to me it possesses a very
peculiar interest. Death is a mysterious event, come when and how it
will; and surely the departure from existence of a species, of a type of
being, that has subsisted in contemporary thousands of individuals, for
thousands of years, is not less imposingly mysterious than that of the
individual exemplar.
We do not know with any precision what are the immediate causes of death
in a species. Is there a definite limit to life imposed at first? or is
this limit left, so to speak, to be determined by accidental
circumstances? Perhaps both: but if the latter, what are those
circumstances?
Professor Owen says:--"There are characters in land animals rendering
them more obnoxious to extirpating influences, which may explain why so
many of the larger species of particular groups have become extinct,
whilst smaller species of equal antiquity have survived. In proportion
to its bulk is the difficulty of the contest which the animal has to
maintain against the surrounding agencies that are ever tending to
dissolve the vital bond, and subjugate the living matter to the
ordinary chemical and physical forces. Any changes, therefore, in such
external agencies as a species may have been originally adapted to exist
in, will militate against that existence in a degree proportionate to
the size which may characterise the species. If a dry season be
gradually prolonged, the large mammal will suffer from the drought
sooner than the small one; if such alteration of climate affect the
quantity of vegetable food, the bulky herbivore will first feel the
effects of stinted nourishment; if new enemies be introduced, the large
and conspicuous animal will fall a prey while the smaller kinds conceal
themselves and escape. Small quadrupeds, moreover, are more prolific
than large ones. Those of the bulk of the mastodons, megatheria,
glyptodons, and diprotodons, are uniparous. The actual presence,
therefore, of small species of animals in countries where larger species
of the same natural families formerly existed, is not the consequence of
degeneration--of any gradual diminution of the size--of such species,
but is the result of circumstances which may be illustrated by the fable
of 'the Oak and the Reed;' the smaller and feebler animals have bent and
accommodated themselves to changes to which the larger species have
succumbed."[68]
"We do not steadily bear in mind," remarks Mr Darwin, "how profoundly
ignorant we are of the condition of existence of every animal; nor do we
always remember that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid
increase of every organised being left in a state of nature. The supply
of food, on an average, remains constant; yet the tendency in every
animal to increase by propagation is geometrical; and its surprising
effects have nowhere been more astonishingly shewn, than in the case of
the European animals run wild during the last few centuries in America.
Every animal in a state of nature regularly breeds; yet in a species
long established, any _great_ increase in numbers is obviously
impossible, and must be checked by some means. We are nevertheless
seldom able with certainty to tell in any given species, at what period
of life, or at what period of the year, or whether only at long
intervals, the check falls; or again, what is the precise nature of the
check. Hence probably it is, that we feel so little surprise at one, of
two species closely allied in habits, being rare and the other abundant
in the same district; or again, that one should be abundant in one
district, and another, filling the same place in the economy of nature,
should be abundant in a neighbouring district, differing very little in
its conditions. If asked how this is, one immediately replies that it is
determined by some slight difference in climate, food, or the number of
enemies: yet how rarely, if ever, we can point out the precise cause and
manner of action of the check! We are, therefore, driven to the
conclusion that causes generally quite inappreciable by us, determine
whether a given species shall be abundant or scanty in numbers.
"In the cases where we can trace the extinction of a species through
man, either wholly or in one limited district, we know that it becomes
rarer and rarer, and is then lost; it would be difficult to point out
any just distinction between a species destroyed by man or by the
increase of its natural enemies. The evidence of rarity preceding
extinction, is more striking in the successive tertiary strata, as
remarked by several able observers; it has often been found that a shell
very common in a tertiary stratum is now most rare, and has even long
been thought to be extinct. If, then, as appears probable, species first
become rare and then extinct--if the too rapid increase of every
species, even the most favoured, is steadily checked, as we must admit,
though how and when it is hard to say--and if we see, without the
smallest surprise, though unable to assign the precise reason, one
species abundant, and another closely-allied species rare in the same
district--why should we feel such great astonishment at the rarity being
carried a step further to extinction? An action going on, on every side
of us, and yet barely appreciable, might surely be carried a little
further, without exciting our observation. Who could feel any great
surprise at hearing that the Megalonyx was formerly rare compared with
the Megatherium, or that one of the fossil Monkeys was few in number
compared with one of the now living Monkeys? and yet, in this
comparative rarity, we should have the plainest evidence of less
favourable conditions for their existence. To admit that species
generally become rare before they become extinct--to feel no surprise at
the comparative rarity of one species with another, and yet to call in
some extraordinary agent and to marvel greatly when a species ceases to
exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the
individual is the prelude of death--to feel no surprise at sickness--but
when the sick man dies to wonder, and to believe that he died through
violence."[69]
Geographical distribution is an important element in this question of
extinction. A species that is spread over a wide region is far more
likely to survive than one which is confined to a limited district; and
extraneous influences acting prejudicially will exterminate a species
which is confined to an island much sooner than if it had a continent to
retire upon. We have seen how the _Nestor_ Parrot became extinct in New
Zealand, while it survived in Norfolk Island, because the former was
colonised by the Maori race, while the latter remained in its virginity.
But how quickly did the poor Parrot succumb as soon as man set his foot
on Norfolk and Philip Islands! And how brief was the lease of life
accorded to the _Didunculus_, when once the "Pussies" found their way to
the little Samoa isles!
Very many islands have a fauna that is to a great extent peculiar to
themselves. I know that, in Jamaica, the Humming-birds, some of the
Parrots, some of the Cuckoos, most of the Pigeons, many of the smaller
birds, and, I think, all of the Reptiles, are found nowhere else. Nay,
more, that even the smaller islands of the Antilles have each a fauna of
its own, unshared with any other land;--its own Humming-birds, its own
Lizards and Snakes; its own Butterflies and Beetles, its own Spiders,
its own Snails, its own Worms. How likely are some of these very limited
species to become extinguished! By the increasing aggressions of
clearing and cultivating man; by slight changes of level; even by
electric and meteoric phenomena acting very locally. I find that, in
Jamaica, many of the animals peculiar to the island are not spread over
the whole surface, limited as that is, but are confined to a single
small district. In some cases, the individuals are but few, even in that
favoured locality; how easily we may conceive of a season drier than
ordinary, or wetter than ordinary, or a flood, or a hurricane of unusual
violence, or a volcanic eruption, either killing outright these few
individuals, or destroying their means of living, and so indirectly
destroying them by starvation. And then the species has disappeared!
The common Red Grouse, so abundantly seen during the season hanging at
every poulterer's and game-dealer's shop in London, is absolutely
unknown out of the British Isles. It could not live except in wide,
unenclosed, uncultivated districts; so that when the period arrives that
the whole of British land is enclosed and brought under cultivation, the
Grouse's lease of life will expire. We owe it to our hard-worked members
of Parliament to hope that this condition of things may be distant.
[1] See my _Omphalos_,--_passim_.
[2] The gradual but constant elevation of the bed of the Baltic, and the
subsidence of that of the Pacific Ocean, are examples on a large scale.
[3] Gen. x. 5.
[4] _Chlamydotherium_, _Euryodon_, _Glossotherium_, _&c._
[5] Owen _On the Mylodon_.
[6] Perhaps the most complete and the most magnificent skeleton of this
animal ever discovered, was exhumed in 1849 at Killowen, in Co. Wexford.
It was buried _only four feet below the surface_, between the vegetable
mould and plastic clay. The roots of the black willow and German rush
had entwined themselves round the bones, and some seeds, ascertained to
be those of the wild cabbage, were found in the same bed. The dimensions
of the skeleton were as follows:--Height, 12-1/2 feet to the tips of the
horns, 7 feet to the top of the pelvis; expanse of horns 11 feet in a
chord, or 13 feet 6 inches along the curve; palm of the antlers 2 feet 7
inches long by 1 foot 5 inches broad, some of the snags 2 feet 6 inches
long; the face 1 foot 10-1/2 inches in length.
[7] _Annals of Nat. Hist._ xv.
[8] _Hist. Animals_, xvi. 17.
[9] _Nat. Hist._ ix. 10.
[10] _On the Mammoth or Fossil Elephant, &c._ London, 1819.
[11] _Testimony of the Rocks_, p. 97.
[12] See vol. i. p. 361, _supra_.
[13] Latrobe's _Mexico_, p. 192.
[14] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. v.
[15] _Nat. Voy._ ch. viii.
[16] _Compts Rendus_, Jan. 27, 1851.
[17] _Proc. Zool. Soc._, Jan. 27, 1852.
[18] "_The_ Humming-bird." Rather a vague mode of speaking, by a
zoologist, of a genus which numbers more than three hundred species,
varying in size from that of a swallow to that of a humble-bee. But
probably he means one of the minuter species.
[19] _Proc. Zool. Soc._, Nov. 7, 1850.
[20] In the _Times_ of Feb. 21, 1861.
[21] _Proc. Roy. Soc._, X. xxxv. 50.
[22] _Ibid._ IX. xxix. 133.
[23] Because comparatively few readers, and especially the critics, will
take the trouble to ascertain what an author really means if he attempt
argumentation, generally supposing him to be proving something else than
he propounds to himself, it may be needful to say, that I am not
touching the question of the time required for the formation of the
stratified rocks in general, but solely for that of the later Tertiary
deposits.
[24] _Reports of Analysis_, by Apjohn.
[25] Hart _On the Fossil Deer_.
[26] _Zoologist_, for 1846: Preface, p. 10.
[27] Mr Newman, _op. cit._ x.
[28] _Geilt._--According to O'Reilly, this word means "a wild man or
woman,--one living in woods,"--a maniac. It may, however, have been
figuratively applied to some very fierce or untameable creature, either
quadruped or bird, which inhabited the woods. But that the _Simiæ_, or
monkey tribe, were not likely to have at any time inhabited so cold a
country, one would have seen in the term an exceedingly apt expression
for "the wild man of the woods." (Note by Translator.)
But, I venture to remind the reader, there was a veritable ape found in
Britain during the very era of the Giant Deer, and of many of the now
extant animals. I refer to the _Macacus pliocænus_ (Owen) of the
fresh-water deposits. Is it not just possible that the _Geilt_ of
Ireland, the first-named animal in the poem, may have been this species?
A _Macacus_ still lingers in Europe, though the elephants and
hippopotamuses have long deserted us.
[29] _Grib._--Probably the Osprey.
[30] These Wild Oxen are worthy of notice.
[31] The _Toghmall_ was a bird kept as a pet. "When Cuchulain slung a
stone at Queen Meave he killed the Toghmall that was sitting on her
shoulder."
[32] _Ruilech._--Unknown.
[33] _Snag._--Probably the Crane, or one of the Heron tribe.
[34] _Echtach._--From a legend attached to the locality, there is a
possibility that these were a peculiar breed of horned cattle.
[35] _Drenn._--Probably the Wren.
[36] _Cainche_--Unknown.
[37] _Errfiach._--Unknown.
[38] _Cricharan._--Possibly the Squirrel, or the Marten.
[39] Mr Curry says, "In the dictionaries _Ormchre_ is the term for a
leopard, but that animal did not exist in Ireland." But the caves of
Britain shew that very formidable _Felidæ_ roamed here in the Later
Tertiary Era.
[40] _Riabhog._--The "cuckoo's waiting-maid," a little bird, is still so
called in the west of Ireland. In England the wryneck (_Yunx torquilla_)
bears this office, and also in Wales, where Pennant says it is called
_Gwás y gog_, which means the same thing.
[41] _Peatans._--Conjectured to be Leverets.
[42] What is the difference between wild Boars and wild Hogs? The
ransom, too, was to consist of a male and a _female_ of each kind of
_wild_ animals.
[43] _Fereidhin._--Unknown.
[44] See note [42] _supra_.
[45] _Iaronn._--Unknown.
[46] _Geisechtachs._--"Screamers;"--perhaps Peacocks. But is it likely
that the Peacock and the Pheasant (_vide supra_) were imported from the
East so early?
[47] _Bruacharan._--Unknown.
[48] _Naescan._--The Snipe may be meant.
[49] The term _Spireog_ is still used in the locality referred to, and
signifies the Sparrowhawk. It has, however, somewhat of a Saxon sound.
[50] _Sgreachóg._--Conjecturally, Screech-owl; or Jay.
[51] _Geilt Glinne._--See note [28] on p. 58.
[52] The _Onchu_ has been mentioned before. See note [39] on p. 59.
There were several kindred _Felidæ_ in the Pliocene period. May the word
refer to two of these bearing the same name, but the one distinguished
by the term _fleet_?
[53] "_Pigs_" again! This is the fourth time. "Wild Hogs, wild Boars,
Pigs, and yet Pigs." From the prominence thus given to the grunting race
in the ransom, one is tempted to conclude that "'Twas the Pig that paid
the rint," then, as now!
[54] Mr Wilde, in an interesting paper "On the Unmanufactured Animal
Remains belonging to the Royal Irish Academy," read before the Academy
on the 9th and 25th of May, 1859, to which I am indebted for the
foregoing poem, cites the following legend, which we might have referred
to the _Megaceros_, but that he appears to consider the animal in
question the Red Deer or Stag:--"On another occasion St Patrick and his
retinue, with Cailte MacRonain, came to the house of a rich landholder
who lived in the southern part of the present County of Kildare, near
the river Slaney. The farmer complained to Cailte that although he sowed
a great quantity of corn every year, it yielded him no profit, on
account of _a huge wild Deer_ which every year came across the Slaney
from the west when the corn was ripe for cutting, and, rushing through
it in all directions, trampled it down under his feet. Cailte undertook
to relieve him, and he sent into Munster for his seven deer-nets, which
arrived in due time. He then went out and placed his men and his hounds
in the paths through which the great deer was accustomed to pass, and he
set his deer-nets upon the cliffs, passes, and rivers around, and when
he saw the animal coming to the Ford of the Red Deer on the river
Slaney, he took his spear and cast a fortunate throw at him, driving it
the length of a man's arm out through the opposite side; and 'The Red
Ford of the Great Deer' is the name of that pass on the Slaney ever
since; and they brought him back to Drom Lethan, or 'The Broad Hill,'
which is called 'The Broad Hill of the Great Wild Deer.'"
[55] The Editor of "The Indian Field;" in the _Zoologist_, p. 6427.
[56] The Welsh "Triads," supposed to have been compiled in the seventh
century, say that "the Kymri, a Celtic tribe, first inhabited Britain;
before them were no men here, but only bears, wolves, beavers, and oxen
with high prominences." Were these Bisons?
[57] See Vol. i, 203, _supra_.
[58] This is the more interesting because it includes the _Urus_ as well
as the "_Schelch_," which latter, though the meaning of the word is not
certain, some are disposed to identify with the Giant Deer of Ireland.
[59] See note [56] on p. 68.
[60] M.S. H. ii. 13.
[61] _Blackwood's Magazine_, January 1849.
[62] "Travels," 4th ed., 1677.
[63] Sloane MSS., No. 1839.
[64] _Zoologist_, p. 4298.
[65] _British Birds_, iii. 477, (Ed. 2.)
[66] Dr Charlton, in the _Trans. Tyneside Nat. Hist. Soc._
[67] _Nat. Voy._, ch. ix.
[68] Lecture; reported in the _Athenæum_ for May 21, 1859.
[69] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. viii.
II.
THE MARVELLOUS.
The vulgar mind is very prone to love the marvellous, and to count for a
prodigy every unusual phenomenon, every occurrence not perfectly
accountable on any hypothesis which is familiar to them. The poetical
period of history in every country is full of prodigies; for in the dawn
of civilisation the physical laws of nature are little understood, and
multitudes of natural phenomena are either referred to false causes, or,
being unreferrible to any recognised cause, are set down as mere
wonders. It is the province of science to dispel these delusions, to
expose the undiscovered, but by no means undiscoverable, origins of
unusual events, and thus to be continually narrowing the limits of the
unknown. These limits, however, have not even yet quite reached the
minuteness of a mathematical point; and there are a few marvels left for
the indefatigable rummagings of modern science to explain.
Perhaps the predominant tendency of uneducated minds in the present day
is rather to attribute effects to _false_ causes, than to leave them
without any assignable cause. It is much easier for an unreasoning
person to say that Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands, than
to leave Goodwin Sands quite unaccounted for; or to say, the plant-lice
suddenly appear crowding the rose-twigs, "the east wind has cast a
blight," or "it is something in the air," than "I do not know how to
account for their appearance." To a reflecting person, indeed, who
weighs forces, the east wind appears as incompetent to the production of
living animals as the tall tower to the origination of a sand-bank; and
this, though he might be able to suggest nothing a whit more competent.
What should he do in such a case? Manifestly this--test the actual
existence and conditions of the phenomenon; see that it really has
occurred; and, if the fact cannot be denied, admit it as a fact, and
wait further light as to its causation.
I do not by any means presume to declare the universal "why and because"
of every familiar or unfamiliar occurrence: I leave that to more
pretentious philosophers; smiling occasionally in my sleeve at the
egotism which cannot see its own _non-sequiturs_. But still less can I
consent to set aside every phenomenon which I cannot explain, with the
common resource,--"Pooh! pooh! there must be some mistake!" Rather would
I say, "There must still be some ignorance in me: near as I have reached
to the summit of the ladder of knowledge, there must be still one or two
rongs to be mounted before I can proclaim my mastery of all, absolutely
_all_, the occult causes of things. Therefore, till then I must be
content with the lowlier task of patiently accumulating evidence."
At various times and in various places popular superstition has been
excited by the occurrence of what have been called showers of blood. The
destruction of cities and of kingdoms has been, according to historians,
preceded by this awful omen. Yet this has been explained by a very
natural and accountable phenomenon. In the year 1553, the hedges and
trees, the stones of the pathway, and the clothes of many persons, were
sprinkled copiously with drops of red fluid, which was supposed to be
blood, till some observant person noticed the coincident appearance of
unusual swarms of butterflies, and marked that the coloured drops
proceeded from them. Again, at Aix la Chapelle in 1608, the same awful
appearance occurred, especially on the walls of a particular churchyard.
M. Peiresc, an able naturalist, residing at Aix, traced the phenomenon
here to the same cause. Just before, he had found a large chrysalis,
which he had enclosed in a box, in order to identify the species to
which it belonged. A few days after, hearing a rustling, he opened the
box, and discovered a beautiful butterfly evolved from the pupa, which
had left upon the floor of its prison a large red stain. He saw that the
character of this deposit agreed exactly with that of the ominous drops
abroad, and remarking an unusual abundance of the same kind of
butterfly, he conceived that he had revealed the cause of the terrific
phenomenon. He was confirmed in this belief by the circumstance that the
supposed blood-drops were not found in the streets of the town, nor upon
the roofs of the houses, where they must have occurred had they fallen
from the sky; and, moreover, that it was rare to see any on the exposed
parts of stones, walls, &c.; but rather under the protection of angles,
and in slight cavities--which agrees well with the habits of the insects
in question. No doubt this was the true explanation of the phenomenon,
but it does not say much for the powers of observation which could have
attributed it to blood, for the colour is by no means that of blood,
especially _dried_ blood, but much more crimson; and the earthy deposit,
resembling chalk, which copiously remains after the fluid part has
evaporated, would in a moment convince any one who was in the habit of
comparing things which differ, that, whatever the substance was, blood
it certainly was not.
I myself not long ago met with an appearance which bore a much closer
resemblance to drops of blood than this, and which yet was referrible to
a widely different origin. In the neighbourhood of Ashburton, in Devon,
a quarter of a mile or so from the town, there is a shallow horse-pond,
the bottom of which consists of an impalpable whitish mud, much indented
with hoof-holes and other irregularities. In these, the water being
dimly clear from settlement, I observed what looked exactly like blood,
in numerous patches, the appearance being as if two or three drops of
blood had fallen in one spot, half-a-dozen in another, and so on. The
colour was true, and even when I alighted, and looked carefully on the
spots, they had just that curdled appearance that drops of blood assume
when they fall into still water. But there appeared on minute
examination a constant intestine motion in each spot, which caused me to
bring my eye closer, when I discovered that I had been egregiously
deceived. Each apparent drop of blood was formed of a number of slender
worms, about as thick as a hog's bristle, and an inch and a half long,
of a red hue, which protruded the greater part of their length from the
mud, in a radiating form, each maintaining a constant undulatory
movement. There were more or fewer centres of radiation, the circles
frequently interrupted by, and merging into, others, just as drops of
blood crowded together would do. On the slightest disturbance the little
actors shrank out of sight into the soft mud; but by scooping up a
little of this I contrived to get a number of them into a phial, which,
as the sediment settled, were seen at the bottom playing as if in their
pond. On examination of the specimens with a microscope I found them to
be minute Annelids, such as I have described, apparently of the genus
_Lumbriculus_ of Grube, with two rows of bristle-pencils, and two
bristles in a pencil. The body was transparent and colourless, and the
red hue was given by the great and conspicuous longitudinal
blood-vessels, and by the lateral connecting vessels, which viewed
sidewise took the form of loops. The animals soon died in captivity, but
I kept some for three or four days alive.
I have elsewhere referred to the curious phenomenon of crimson snow, and
to the uncertainty which still hangs over its cause. I have lately met
with another explanation, which seems sufficiently guaranteed to be
depended on, though, as the red snow occurs in places where this cause
cannot operate, it only shews that similar results may be produced by
diverse agencies. A certain resemblance between the facts and those
adduced by M. Peiresc will warrant my quoting them. Mr Thomas Nicholson,
in a visit to Sowallik Point, in Prince Regent's Inlet, thus describes
what he saw:--"The summit of the hill forming the point is covered with
huge masses of granite, while the side, which forms a gentle declivity
towards the bay, was covered with crimson snow. It was evident, at first
view, that this colour was imparted to the snow by a substance lying on
the surface. This substance lay scattered here and there in small masses
bearing some resemblance to powdered cochineal, surrounded by a lighter
shade, which was produced by the colouring matter being partly dissolved
and diffused by the deliquescent snow. During this examination our hats
and upper garments were observed to be daubed with a substance of a
similar red colour; and a moment's reflection convinced us that this was
the excrement of the little Auk, myriads of which bird were continually
flying over our heads, having their nests among the loose masses of
granite. A ready explanation of the origin of the red snow was now
presented to us, and not a doubt remained in the mind of any of us that
this was the correct one. The snow on the mountains of higher elevation
than the nests of these birds was perfectly white; and a ravine at a
short distance, which was filled with snow from top to bottom, but which
afforded no hiding-place for these birds to form their nests, presented
an appearance uniformly white."[70]
After all, however, real _bonâ fide_ rain does sometimes descend, which,
if not blood-red, is at least red. "M. Giovanni Campani, Professor of
Chemistry at the University of Siena, has just published a letter,
addressed to Professor Matteucci, on a most singular phenomenon which
occurred at Siena in December last. On the 28th of that month, about
seven A.M., the inhabitants of the northwestern part of the city
witnessed with surprise the curious phenomenon of a copious fall of rain
of a reddish hue, which lasted two hours; a second shower of the same
colour occurred at eleven A.M., and a third at two P.M., but that of the
deepest red fell the first time. But what adds to the strangeness of the
occurrence is that it was entirely confined to that particular quarter
of the town, and so nicely was the line drawn that the cessation of the
red colour was ascertained in one direction to be at about two hundred
mètres from the meteorological observatory, the pluviometer of which
received colourless rain at exactly the same time. The temperature
during the same interval varied between 8 deg. and 10 deg. Centigrade
(46 and 50 Fahrenheit). The wind blew from the S.W. at the beginning of
the phenomenon, and afterwards changed to W.S.W. None of the rural
population in the immediate vicinity of Siena remarked the occurrence,
so that most probably the rain that fell round the town was colourless.
The same phenomenon, strange to say, recurred in exactly the same
quarter of the town on the 31st of December, and again on the 1st of
January, the wind being W.N.W., and the temperature respectively 35 and
39·42 deg., Fahrenheit. Each time, however, the red colour diminished
in depth, its greatest strength having at no time exceeded that of weak
wine and water. A similar occurrence is recorded as having taken place
in 1819 at Blankenburg, when MM. Meyer and Stopp found the water to
contain a solution of chloride of cobalt. Professor Campani, who is now
engaged, in conjunction with his colleague, Professor Gabrielli, in
analyzing the red water collected, has ascertained that in this instance
it contains no chloride of cobalt, and, moreover, that the colour must
be owing to some solution, since the water has deposited no
sediment."[71]
The occasional occurrence of large masses of water stained of a vivid
red hue, and for the most part suddenly, and without any ostensible
cause, has not unreasonably been recorded as a prodigy, rivalling one of
the plagues of Egypt--the turning of the waters into blood.
"I remember," says Mr Latrobe, "the report reaching Neufchatel, through
the medium of the market-people passing from the one lake to the other,
(some time during the winter,) that the waters of the lake of Morat had
suddenly become the colour of blood, though I could meet with no one
whose testimony was sufficiently clear and unequivocal to establish the
fact. This, joined to my not having the leisure then to go and see for
myself, caused the matter to slip from my memory entirely, till I found
myself in the neighbourhood. Here the circumstance was fully confirmed
to me in a manner not to be questioned; and having since met with a
paper, written by M. de Candolle, of Geneva, on the subject, I shall
take what is there stated as my best guide in mentioning the facts as
they occurred:--
"It appears that this singular phenomenon began to excite the attention
of the inhabitants of Morat as early as November last year, and that it
continued more or less observable during the whole of the winter.
"Mr Trechsel, a gentleman resident at Morat, to whom M. de Candolle
applied, on hearing the report, for information and specimens of the
colouring matter, stated--That during the early hours of the day no
extraordinary appearance was observable in the lake; but that a little
later, long parallel lines of reddish matter were seen to extend along
the surface of the water, at some short distance from the banks. This,
being blown by the wind towards the more sheltered parts of the shore,
collected itself about the reeds and rushes, covering the surface of the
lake with a light foam; forming as it were different strata of various
colours, from greenish black, grey, yellow, and brown, to the most
delicious red. He adds, that this matter exhaled a pestiferous odour
during the day, but disappeared at the approach of night. It was further
observed, that during tempestuous weather it vanished altogether. Many
small fishes were seen to become intoxicated while swimming amongst it,
and after a few convulsive leaps, to lie motionless on the surface.
"The naturalists of Geneva decided, from the specimens sent, that it
was an animal substance, which, if not the _Oscillatoria subfusca_,[72]
was nearly allied to it.
"Soon after the beginning of May it disappeared entirely. It is not
known that this phenomenon has appeared before in the lake of Morat
within the memory of man. Tradition states the same to have happened the
year preceding the great battle."[73]
A few years ago, in one of my tanks of sea-water, there occurred a
phenomenon much like this. Patches of a rich crimson-purple colour
formed here and there on the surface, which rapidly grew on all sides
till they coalesced. If allowed to be a few days undisturbed, the entire
surface of the water became covered with a pellicle of the substance,
which spread also over the stones and shells of the bottom, and the
sides of the vessel. It could be lifted in impalpable laminæ on sheets
of paper. I found it difficult to keep it within bounds, and impossible
to get quite rid of it, till, after some months, I lost it by the
accidental breaking of the vessel. Under the microscope, this proved an
_Oscillatoria_, which I could not identify with any of the described
species in Harvey's _Phytologia_: the filaments creeping and twining
with the peculiar vermicular movements of the genus.
Blood-like waters are sometimes produced by a rapid evolution of
infusorial animalcules. Of these the most effective are _Astasia
hæmatodes_, and _Euglena sanguinea_; both of them minute spindle-shaped
creatures of a pulpy substance, and sanguine hue. They are produced
occasionally in incalculable numbers, increasing with vast rapidity by
means of spontaneous division. Ehrenberg suggests that the miracle of
blood-change performed on the Nile and on all other collections of water
in Egypt by Moses (Exod. vii. 17-25) may have been effected by the
agency of these animalcules. Of course it would require Divine power as
much to educe uncounted millions of animalcules at the word of command,
as to form real blood, so that no escape from the presence of Deity
would be gained by admitting the supposition; but the words of the
inspired narrative seem to render it untenable.
To return to showers. "If it should rain cats and dogs,"--is a phrase
which is in many mouths; but probably no one has heard it transferred
from the subjunctive to the indicative mood. Why not, however, if it
rains snails, frogs, fishes, and feathers? That these animals and animal
products are really poured down from the atmosphere, I can adduce some
evidence; the value of which my readers may weigh when they have heard
the pleadings.
In that venerable newspaper, _Felix Farley's Journal_, for July 1821,
there was "an account of a wonderful quantity of snail-shells found in a
piece of land of several acres near Bristol, that common report says
fell in a shower." This shell-storm attracting much attention at the
time, Mr Wm. Baker, of Bridgewater, asked information from the Curator
of the Bristol Institution, who thus cleared up the mystery:--"The
periwinkles are indeed wonderful. They descended, forsooth, in a heavy
rain-like shower on the field of Mr Peach, as a due punishment for his
disrespect to the virtues of our late queen. The shower was so intense,
that the umbrella of an old lady passing by was broken to pieces, and
the fragments lifted in the air by the whirlwind, which picked up all
the periwinkles on the neighbouring hills, and dropped them three inches
thick on Mr Peach's field! But you know the story of 'The Three Black
Crows;' and thus the whole is reduced to no periwinkle rain, no
whirlwind; but turns out to be our old friend _Helix virgata_, making
its annual pilgrimage in search of a mate, and occurring one in almost
every square inch in the field in question."
Provincial newspapers seem to have a special power of reporting such
natural history facts, which rarely survive investigation. The _Stroud
Free Press_, for May 23, 1851, tells us that "an extraordinary scene was
witnessed at Bradford, about twelve miles from Bristol, on Saturday
week, when that village was visited by a heavy shower of snails. They
might have been gathered by bushels." Mr J. W. Douglas, the eminent
entomologist, immediately asked some pertinent questions anent the
shower; but whether it was that the witnesses were grieved at his
profanely comparing such prodigies to Professors Morison and Holloway's
cures, or whether they had no more definite intelligence to communicate,
_certes_ echo answered not.
We fear we must give up snails. But frogs! everybody knows that toads
and frogs fall from the sky. According to travellers in tropical
America, the inhabitants of Portobello assert that every drop of rain is
changed into a toad; the more instructed, however, believe that the
spawn of these animals is raised with the vapour from the adjoining
swamps, and being driven in the clouds over the city, the ova are
hatched as they descend in rain. 'Tis certain that the streets after a
night of heavy rain are almost covered with the ill-favoured reptiles,
and it is impossible to walk without crushing them.[74] But heretic
philosophers point to the mature growth of the vermin, many of them
being six inches in length, and maintain that the clever hypothesis just
mentioned will scarcely account for the appearance of these.
In the _Leeds Mercury_ for June 1844, there occurred the following
statement:--"In the course of the afternoon of Monday last, during the
prevalence of rather heavy rain, the good people of Selby were
astonished at a remarkable phenomenon. It was rendered forcibly
apparent, that, with the descent of the rain, there was a shower of
another description, viz. a shower of frogs. The truth of this was
rendered more manifest by the circumstance that several of the frogs
were caught in their descent by holding out hats for that purpose. They
were about the size of a horse-bean, and remarkably lively after their
aerial but wingless flight. The same phenomenon was observed in the
immediate neighbourhood."
The editor of the _Zoologist_ immediately asked for confirmation of the
stated facts, from resident persons of science; but notwithstanding the
circumstantiality of the account, and especially the reported actual
capture of the little sprawlers in hats, no one replied to the demand,
and we are compelled to conclude that the report would not bear critical
investigation.
Yet incredulity may be pushed too far even here. For, in the continental
journals many more such statements occur than in those of this country,
and some of them vouched by apparently indisputable authority. If my
readers will refer to _L'Institut._ tom. ii. (1834) pp. 337, 346, 347,
353, 354, 386, 409; tom. iv. (1836) pp. 221, 314, 325; tom. vi. (1838)
p. 212, they will find mention made of this phenomenon,--showers of
toads. In two or three of these cases, the toads were not only observed
in countless numbers on the ground, during, and after, heavy storms of
rain, but were seen to strike upon the roofs of houses, bounding thence
into the streets; they even fell upon the hats, umbrellas, and clothes
of the observers, who were out in the storm, and, in one instance, were
actually received into the outstretched hand.[75]
Much more recently, namely, early in 1859, the newspapers of South Wales
recorded a shower of fish in the Valley of Aberdare. The repeated
statements attracted more notice than usual, and the Rev. John Griffith,
the vicar of the parish, communicated the following results of his
inquiries to the _Evening Mail_:--
"Many of your readers might, perhaps, like to see the facts connected
with this phenomenon. They will be better understood in the words of the
principal witness, as taken down by me on the spot where it happened.
This man's name is John Lewis, a sawyer in Messrs Nixon and Co.'s yard.
His evidence is as follows:--'On Wednesday, February 9, I was getting
out a piece of timber for the purpose of setting it for the saw, when I
was startled by something falling all over me--down my neck, on my head,
and on my back. On putting my hand down my neck I was surprised to find
they were little fish. By this time I saw the whole ground covered with
them. I took off my hat, the brim of which was full of them. They were
jumping all about. They covered the ground in a long strip of about
eighty yards by twelve, as we measured afterwards. That shed (pointing
to a very large workshop) was covered with them, and the shoots were
quite full of them. My mates and I might have gathered bucketfuls of
them, scraping with our hands. We did gather a great many, about a
bucketful, and threw them into the rain-pool, where some of them now
are. There were two showers, with an interval of about ten minutes, and
each shower lasted about two minutes or thereabouts. The time was eleven
A.M. The morning up-train to Aberdare was just then passing. It was not
blowing very hard, but uncommon wet, just about the same wind as there
is to-day (blowing rather stiff), and it came from this quarter
(pointing to the S. of W.). They came down with the rain in "a body,
like."' Such is the evidence. I have taken it for the purpose of being
laid before Professor Owen, to whom, also, I shall send to-morrow, at
the request of a friend of his, eighteen or twenty of the little fish.
Three of them are large and very stout, measuring about four inches. The
rest are small. There were some--but they are since dead--fully five
inches long. They are very lively.--Your obedient servant,
"JOHN GRIFFITH,
"Vicar of Aberdare and Rural Dean.
"VICARAGE, ABERDARE, _March 8_."
The specimens which were forwarded to Professor Owen were exhibited in a
tank at the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park: they consisted of
minnows (_Leuciscus phoxinus_) and Smooth-tailed sticklebacks
(_Gasterosteus leiurus_.) A _savant_ thus endeavoured to "enlighten" the
uninitiated on the matter:--"On reading the evidence it appears to me
most probably only a practical joke of the mates of John Lewis, who seem
to have thrown a pailful of water with the fish in it over him, and he
appears to have returned them to the pool from which they were
originally taken. The fish forwarded are very unlike those taken up in
whirlwinds in tropical countries, and we must make allowance for
unintentional exaggerations of quantity, &c., in an account given a
month after the event had occurred."
This "appears to me" a beautiful example of critical acumen. My readers
will do well to look at it for a moment; as they may thus learn how to
sift the grain of truth out of the bushel of chaff. _Reverentèr
procedamus!_
The main (is it not the only?) objection to the honest sawyer's
statement is that "the fish are very unlike those taken up in whirlwinds
in tropical countries." That is, that, seeing the phenomenon occurs in
Great Britain, it is most unfortunate that the fishes are British
species. Now, in India, when such things occur, it is always _Indian_
species that are taken up; _ergo_, it ought to be Indian species _here_.
But these are "very unlike" the Indian fishes; _ergo_, it is manifestly
a humbug.
Then, does it not strike one as palpably probable, when once one's dull
intellect has been "enlightened" by the brilliant suggestion,--that the
worthy sawyer who had a pail of water soused upon him, thought it was a
heavy shower of rain? _Very_ heavy, no doubt; indeed he says it was
"uncommon wet." To be sure, he thought there were _two_ showers, each
lasting about two minutes, with an interval of ten minutes between them;
but this little error might be easily made, for doubtless a bucket of
water poured on one's head might well be equivalent to two showers of
rain, or even ten, for that matter. To be sure, moreover, there was a
considerable quantity of fish:--"The whole ground was covered with them:
they were jumping all about: they covered the ground in a long strip of
about eighty yards by twelve, _as we measured_ afterwards: the shed was
covered with them, and the shoots were quite full of them.... My mates
and I might have gathered bucketfuls of them: we did gather about a
bucketful." Yes, yes: but all were originally in the pail of water
thrown over you, John. How stupid you were, not to perceive _that_! How
there was room for any water at all in the pail, seeing there were so
many fish, you say you don't know; but that is your stupidity, John!
There _must_ have been room for water, for it was "uncommon wet;" and
the water was in the pail, for the Doctor says so. Uncommon fishy, too,
I should think; but let that pass. Where the mates collected the pail of
live fishes for their pleasant and profitable hoax, and how, and
when,--the sceptic might wonderingly ask; but a hoax it was. _Ipse
dixit._
However, the verdict did not obtain universal assent; and an excellent
and well-known naturalist, Mr Robert Drave, residing in the vicinity,
ventured modestly to indicate a dissent. "I think actual fact will
excuse the otherwise apparently unbecoming assumption in me, of opposing
such high authority by a contrary opinion, for from information
_obtained from many sources, and very careful and minute_ inquiry, I am
quite convinced that a great number of fish did actually descend with
rain _over a considerable tract of country_. The specimens I obtained
_from three individuals_, resident some distance from each other, were
of two species, the common minnow and the three-spined stickleback; the
former most abundant, and mostly very small, though some had attained
their full size."[76]
If now we look to other lands, we shall find that the descent of fishes
from the atmosphere, under conditions little understood, is a phenomenon
which rests on indubitable evidence. Humboldt has published interesting
details of the ejection of fish in large quantities from volcanoes in
South America. On the night between the 19th and 20th of June, 1698, the
summit of Carguairazo, a volcano more than 19,000 feet in height, fell
in, and all the surrounding country for nearly thirty-two square miles
was covered with mud and fishes. A similar eruption of fish from the
volcano of Imbaburu was supposed to have been the cause of a putrid
fever which raged in the town of Ibarra seven years before that period.
These facts are not inexplicable. Subterraneous lakes, communicating
with surface-waters, form in deep cavities in the declivities, or at the
base of a volcano. In certain active stages of ignition, these internal
cavities are burst open, and their contents discharged through the
crater. Humboldt ascertained that the fishes in question belonged to a
curious and ill-favoured species of the _Siluridæ_,--the _Pimelodes
Cyclopum_.
Showers of fishes, however, do occur, which cannot be connected with
volcanic agency. Dr Buist, in an interesting paper published in the
_Bombay Times_ in 1856, has collected a number of authentic examples of
this phenomenon. The author, after enumerating the cases just cited, and
others of similar character, in which fishes were said to have been
thrown out from volcanoes in South America, and precipitated from clouds
in various parts of the world, adduces the following instances of
similar occurrences in India:--"In 1824," he says, "fishes fell at
Meerut, on the men of her Majesty's 14th Regiment, then out at drill,
and were caught in numbers. In July 1826, live fish were seen to fall on
the grass at Moradabad during a storm. They were the common _Cyprinus_,
so prevalent in our Indian waters. On the 19th of February 1830, at
noon, a heavy fall of fish occurred at the Nokulhatty factory, in the
Daccah Zillah; depositions on the subject were obtained from nine
different parties. The fish were all dead; most of them were large; some
were fresh, others were rotten and mutilated. They were seen at first in
the sky, like a flock of birds, descending rapidly to the ground; there
was rain drizzling, but no storm. On the 16th and 17th of May, 1833, a
fall of fish occurred in the Zillah of Futtehpoor, about three miles
north of the Jumna, after a violent storm of wind and rain. The fish
were from a pound and a-half to three pounds in weight, and of the same
species as those found in the tanks in the neighbourhood. They were all
dead and dry. A fall of fish occurred at Allahabad, during a storm in
May 1835; they were of the chowla species, and were found dead and dry
after the storm had passed over the district. On the 20th of September
1839 after a smart shower of rain, a quantity of live fish, about three
inches in length, and all of the same kind, fell at the Sunderbunds,
about twenty miles south of Calcutta. On this occasion it was remarked
that the fish did not fall here and there irregularly over the ground,
but in a continuous straight line, not more than a span in breadth. The
vast multitudes of fish, with which the low grounds round Bombay are
covered, about a week or ten days after the first burst of the monsoon,
appear to be derived from the adjoining pools or rivulets, and not to
descend from the sky. They are not, as far as I know, found in the
higher parts of the island. I have never seen them, though I have
watched carefully, in casks collecting water from the roofs of
buildings, or heard of them on the decks or awnings of vessels in the
harbour, where they must have appeared had they descended from the sky.
One of the most remarkable phenomena of this kind occurred during a
tremendous deluge of rain at Kattywar, on the 25th of July 1850, when
the ground around Rajkote was found literally covered with fish; some of
them were found on the top of haystacks, where probably they had been
drifted by the storm. In the course of twenty-four successive hours
twenty-seven inches of rain fell, thirty-five fell in twenty-six hours,
seven inches in one hour and a-half, being the heaviest fall on record.
At Poonah, on the 3d of August 1852, after a very heavy fall of rain,
multitudes of fish were caught on the ground in the cantonments, full
half a mile from the nearest stream. If showers of fish are to be
explained on the assumption that they are carried up by squalls or
violent winds, from rivers or spaces of water not far away from, where
they fall, it would be nothing wonderful were they seen to descend from
the air during the furious squalls which occasionally occur in June."
Sir E. Tennent adds the following examples:--"I had an opportunity, on
one occasion only, of witnessing the phenomenon which gives rise to this
popular belief. I was driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of
Colombo, and saw a violent but partial shower descend at no great
distance before me. On coming to the spot, I found a multitude of small
silvery fish from one and a half to two inches in length, leaping on the
gravel of the high road, numbers of which I collected and brought away
in my palankin. The spot was about half a mile from the sea, and
entirely unconnected with any watercourse or pool.
"Mr Whiting, who was many years resident at Trincomalee, writes me that
he 'had been often told by the natives on that side of the island that
it sometimes rained fishes; and on one occasion (he adds) I was taken by
them, in 1849, to a field at the village of Karrancotta-tivo, near
Batticaloa, which was dry when I passed over it in the morning, but had
been covered in two hours by sudden rain to the depth of three inches,
in which there was then a quantity of small fish. The water had no
connexion with any pond or stream whatsoever.' Mr Cripps, in like
manner, in speaking of Galle, says: 'I have seen in the vicinity of the
fort, fish taken from rain-water that had accumulated in the hollow
parts of the land that in the hot season are perfectly dry and parched.
The place is accessible to no running stream or tank; and either the
fish, or the spawn from which they were produced, must of necessity have
fallen with the rain.'"[77]
Mr J. Prinsep, the eminent secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal,
found a fish in the pluviometer at Calcutta, in 1838.[78]
It is a highly curious fact that the pools, reservoirs, and tanks in
India and Ceylon are well provided with fish of various species, though
the water twice every year becomes perfectly evaporated, and the mud of
the bottom becomes converted into dust, or takes the condition of baked
clay, gaping with wide and deep clefts, in which not the slightest sign
of moisture can be detected. This is the case with temporary hollows in
the soil, which have no connexion with running streams or permanent
waters, from which they might be supposed to receive a fresh stock of
fish.
Two modes of accounting for this strange phenomenon have obtained
currency. The one is that received by those Europeans who are content
with any solution of a difficulty, without too closely testing it; viz.,
that the fishes fall with the rains from the air. The actual occurrence
of such showers rests, as we have just seen, on good evidence; but,
admitting the fact, it must be a rare phenomenon, whereas the presence
of fish in the new-made pools is universal. Again, if the rains brought
them in such abundance as to stock all the pools, an equal number would
fall on the dry ground, which is not pretended to be the case. The other
accepted solution is that which has received the sanction of Mr Yarrell,
who observes--"The impregnated ova of the fish of one rainy season are
left unhatched in the mud through the dry season, and from their low
state of organisation _as ova_, the vitality is preserved till the
occurrence and contact of the rain and the oxygen of the next wet
season, when vivification takes place from their joint influence."[79]
This may be fully allowed, yet it does not meet the exigences of the
case. Sir E. Tennent and others have shewn that it is not young fishes
just escaped from the egg which appear in the new-formed pools, but
full-grown fishes, fit for the market; a fact well known to the
Singalese fishermen, who resort to the hollows as soon as the monsoon
has brought rain; and they invariably take in these pools, which a day
or two before were as dry as dust, plenty of fishes fully grown, a foot
or eighteen inches long, or longer.
Neither of these hypotheses, then, will account for the fact: and we
must admit that the fishes of these regions have the instinct to burrow
down in the solid mud of the bottom, at the approach of the dry season,
and the power of retaining life, doubtless in a torpid condition, until
the return of the periodic rains, as Theophrastus long ago observed.[80]
The _Lepidosiren_, a very remarkable genus of animals from Africa and
South America, affords a curious illustration of this power. It is
altogether a highly singular creature, and has attracted a great deal of
notice because its organisation belongs to two types: it is, so to
speak, placed midway between the great classes of Reptiles and Fishes,
the characters which identify it with either being almost equally
balanced. Professor Owen and other eminent physiologists regard it as a
fish, while Professor Bischoff, with others equally learned, consider it
an Amphibian reptile.
It is the habits of this strange creature, however, which induce me to
notice it here. An inhabitant of rivers and ponds, which are swollen by
periodic rains, and subject to entire or partial desiccation by long
droughts, it is liable to be left by the retreating waters, exposed to
the burning sun, under which it would presently die, but for a special
provision.
The animal has the instinct to bury itself in the mud of the bottom, on
the approach of the droughts, penetrating to a depth of several feet.
There it coils itself into a ball, with the tail folded over the nose,
but so as to leave the nasal apertures uncovered; and, probably by its
wrigglings, it forms a cavity or chamber in the clay, which becomes
lined with a membranous slough thrown off from its body. Meanwhile the
water evaporates, the mud dries, bakes, and cracks under the torrid heat
of the dry season, thus allowing air to penetrate down to the retreat of
the torpid mud-fish, in sufficient quantity for its very sluggish
respiration. Here it lies inactive for five or six months, until the wet
season again sets in, and the returning floods cover the old beds,
soften the baked clay, revivify the imprisoned animal, and restore it to
liberty and aquatic locomotion.
To meet these strange conditions of life, the _Lepidosiren_ is furnished
with a twofold apparatus for respiration; the one aquatic, consisting
of gills, ordinarily contained in a branchial chamber, (but in one
species, at least, external,) suited for the separation of oxygen from
the water, and the other aerial, consisting of true lungs, closely
resembling those of serpents, though manifestly only a modification of
the well-known swim-bladder of many fishes,--by means of which the
animal breathes atmospheric air, during its periodic captivity.
The same emergency is met by other species in another way. It does not
appear that the _Lepidosiren_ has the power of voluntarily forsaking the
water, or of travelling on land, notwithstanding its twofold
respiration; but some of the fishes of the tropics certainly resort to
this mode of evading the fatal contingency of being baked out by the
evaporating power of the periodical dry season.
Theophrastus, the contemporary of Aristotle, mentions fishes found in
the Euphrates which in the dry seasons leave the vacant channels and
crawl over the ground in search of water, moving along by fins and
tail.[81] Pallegoix gives three kinds of fish in Siam, which leave the
tanks and channels and travel through the grass;[82] and Sir John
Bowring states that in ascending the river Meinam to Bangkok, he was
amused with the sight of fish leaving the stream, gliding over the wet
banks, till they disappeared among the trees of the jungle.[83] The
_Hydragyræ_ of Carolina in like manner leave the drying pools, and seek
the nearest water in a straight line, though at a considerable distance.
And Sir R. Schomburgk tells us that certain species of _Dora_ in Guiana
have the same habit, and are occasionally met with in such numbers in
their terrestrial travels that the negroes fill baskets with them.[84]
These fishes, provincially called Hassars, project themselves on their
bony pectoral fins, aiding their advance by the elastic spring of the
tail exerted sidewise, proceeding in this manner nearly as fast as a man
can walk. The strong scaly bands which envelop the body facilitate the
march, in the same way as the transverse plates (_scuta_) on the belly
of serpents, which take hold of the ground, as the ribs perform the
office of feet. The Indians know that these fishes have the power of
carrying a supply of water in a reservoir, for the keeping of the gills
in a moist condition. If they fail in finding water, they are said to
burrow in the still soft mud, and pass the dry season in torpidity like
the _Lepidosiren_.
The common eel is well known to have this habit of travelling with us; I
well remember my surprise, when a boy, at finding an eel in a grassy
meadow one dewy summer evening, at a considerable distance from water.
Since then I have seen a small species of _Antennarius_, running quickly
to and fro on the surface of the great beds of floating sea-weed in the
Gulf stream, progressing by means of its pectorals and ventrals quite
out of water, with the utmost facility.
[Illustration: THE CLIMBING PERCH.]
The most celebrated example of this faculty, however, is the climbing
perch (_Anabas scandens_) of India. The vagaries of this little fish
have been recorded from the earliest times, and numerous modern
witnesses have borne record to its powers. Mr E. Layard once encountered
several travelling along a hot dusty gravel-road in the mid-day sun.[85]
Daldorf, a Danish zoologist of reputation, asserts that he has seen this
species in the act of climbing palm-trees, effecting its ascent by means
of fins and tail, with the aid of its spinous gill-covers. There is,
however, some doubt whether he was not under mistake in this, though the
fact of its crawling up the banks and living out of water is abundantly
known.
On the coasts of Ceylon, according to its accomplished historian,--on
the rocks which are washed by the surf, there are multitudes of a
curious little fish, (_Salarias alticus_,) which possesses the faculty
of darting along the surface of the water, and running up the wet
stones, with the utmost ease and rapidity. By aid of its pectoral and
ventral fins and gill-cases, it moves across the damp sand, ascends the
roots of the mangroves, and climbs up the smooth face of the rocks in
search of flies; adhering so securely as not to be detached by repeated
assaults of the waves. These little creatures are so nimble, that it is
almost impossible to lay hold of them, as they scramble to the edge, and
plunge into the sea on the slightest attempt to molest them. They are
from three to four inches in length, and of a dark-brown colour, almost
indistinguishable from the rocks they frequent.[86]
In all these cases probably, the power of sustaining a protracted
privation of water depends on a peculiar structure of the pharynx, which
is divided by membranous plates into cells which the fish can fill at
pleasure with water, and by ejecting small portions at a time can
moisten its gills, and thus preserve the filaments of these organs in a
fit condition to maintain the circulation and oxygenation of the blood.
These labyrinthal water-chambers are particularly numerous and
complicated in the _Anabas_ just mentioned. This, however, has no
analogy with the lung of the _Lepidosiren_.
[70] _Mag. Nat. Hist._, ii. 322.
[71] From the _Times_ of Jan. 24, 1861.
[72] The _Oscillatoria_ is a genus of _plants_; it is a microscopic
_Alga_ of wire-like form belonging to the great Confervoid family,
having the remarkable peculiarity of spontaneous and apparently
voluntary motion.
[73] Latrobe's _Alpenstock_, p. 12.
[74] Seemann's _Isthmus of Panama_.
[75] I am indebted for this note to the Rev. Leonard Jenyns. See his
edition of White's _Selborne_, (1843) p. 66.
[76] _Zoologist_, pp. 6541, 6564.
[77] _Ceylon_, i. 211.
[78] _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vi. 465.
[79] _Brit. Fishes_, i. xxvii. Aristotle had long before given the same
explanation.
[80] _De Pisc. in siceo degent._
[81] _De Piscibus._
[82] _Siam_, i. 144.
[83] _Emb. to Siam_, i. 10.
[84] _Fishes of Guiana_, i. 113.
[85] _Annals N. H._, _May 1853_.
[86] Tennent's _Ceylon_, ii. 498.
III.
MERMAIDS.
According to Berosus there came up from the Red Sea, on the shore
contiguous to Babylonia, a brute creature named Oannes, which had the
body of a fish, above whose front parts rose the head of a man; it had
two human feet, which projected from each side of the tail; it had also
a human voice and human language. This strange monster sojourned among
the rude people during the day, taking no food, but retiring to the sea
again at night; and continued for some time, teaching them the arts of
civilised life. Other ancient authors, as Polyhistor and Apollodorus,
allude to the same tradition; and we gather that the portrait of the
learned stranger (not painted _from the life_, we may presume,
considering the condition of the people when he appeared, unless we may
suppose it to have been the effort of one of his pupils in the pictorial
art under his instruction) was preserved at Babylon to the historic
period.
In an elaborate sculpture of the later Assyrian period, discovered by M.
Botta at Khorsabad, a maritime expedition is portrayed, and the sea
around the ships is filled with various marine animals, and among them
the compound mythic forms of winged bulls and bull-lions, in which the
Assyrians delighted, together with a figure composed of the body and
tail of a fish extended horizontally, and the perpendicular trunk and
foreparts of a man, crowned with the sacred cap, possibly representing
the traditional Oannes.
The god Dagon of the Philistines, and the goddess Atergatis of the
Syrians were worshipped under the same combination of the human and
piscine forms, and the Tritons of classical mythology perpetuated the
idea.
It is curious that in almost all ages and in almost all countries there
should have prevailed a belief in the actual living existence of
creatures like this. Was the mythological symbol the origin of the
persuasion? Or is there any marine animal uniting so much of the general
form of the fish with that of man as to have given the conception of the
idol? A naturalist of deserved eminence has maintained, on purely
scientific grounds, that such an animal must exist,--that the laws of
nature absolutely require such a being; and though the amount of force
which his reasoning, possesses will be estimated differently according
as we reject or accept the hypothesis of the circularity of the great
plan of nature, we may as well see what he has to say for a marine
primate,--be he man or ape, mermaid or mermonkey.
"There is yet," says Mr Swainson, "another primary type necessary to
complete the circle of the quadrumanous animals, and it is that which we
have elsewhere distinguished as the natatorial; but of such an animal we
have only vague and indefinite accounts. It will be seen that,
throughout the whole class of quadrupeds, the aquatic types are
remarkably few, and in general scarce; and that they contain fewer forms
or examples than any other, and are often, in the smaller groups,
entirely wanting. To account for this is altogether impossible; we can
only call attention to the fact, as exemplified in the aquatic order of
_Cetacea_, in that of the _Feræ_, in the _Pachydermata_, in the circle
of the _Glires_, and in all the remaining natatorial types of the
different circles of quadrupeds. We do not implicitly believe in the
existence of mermaids as described and depicted by the old writers--with
a comb in the one hand and a mirror in the other; but it is difficult to
imagine that the numerous records of singular marine animals, unlike any
of those well known, have their origin in fraud or gross ignorance. Many
of these narratives are given by eye-witnesses of the facts they vouch
for--men of honesty and probity, having no object to gain by deception,
and whose accounts have been confirmed by other witnesses equally
trustworthy. Can it be supposed that the unfathomable depths of ocean
are without their _peculiar_ inhabitants, whose habits and economy
rarely, if ever, bring them to the surface of the watery element? As
reasonably might a Swiss mountaineer disbelieve in the existence of an
ostrich, because it cannot inhabit his Alpine precipices, as that we
should doubt that the rocks and caverns of the ocean are without animals
destined to live in such situations, and such only. The natatorial type
of the _Quadrumana_, however, is most assuredly wanting. Whatever its
precise construction may or might have been, it would represent and
correspond to the seals in the circle of the _Feræ_, or rapacious
quadrupeds; while a resemblance to the _Simiadæ_, or monkeys, must be
considered an essential character of any marine animal which is to
connect and complete the circular series of types in the _Quadrumana_."
Mr Swainson absolutely excludes Man from the zoological circle, on
grounds which few naturalists are disposed to think sufficient; else we
might suggest that man himself is the natatorial type of the _Primates_.
Taking this author's own selection[87] of the characters which mark the
natatorial types of animals, for our guide, we find that the largest
size, the smallest fore-limbs, the most obtuse muzzle, the most
carnivorous appetite, and the most natatory habits (for I do not know
that the Apes, or the Sapajous, or the Lemurs, or the Bats, ever take to
the water voluntarily, whereas savage Man is always a great swimmer),
belong to Man, and so, _Swainsonio ipso judice_, constitute _him_ the
true aquatic primate. But if so, we do not want a merman or mermonkey;
nay, we should not know where to insert him in the zoological circle if
we found him; he would be awkwardly _de trop_.
But yet nature _has_ an awkward way of mocking at our impossibilities;
and it _may be_ that green-haired maidens with oary tails lurk in the
ocean caves, and keep mirrors and combs upon their rocky shelves.
Certainly the belief in them is very widely spread, and occasionally
comes to us from quarters where we should hardly have looked for it. A
negro from Dongola assured Prince Puckler Muskau that in the country of
Sennaar there was no doubt that Sirens (mermaids) still existed, for
that he himself had seen more than one.[88]
In my boyhood I well recollect being highly excited by the arrival in
our town, at fair-time, of a "show," which professed to exhibit a
mermaid, whose portrait, on canvas hung outside, was radiant in feminine
loveliness and piscine scaliness. I fondly expected to see the very
counterpart within, how disposed I did not venture to imagine, but alive
and fascinating, of course. Had I not seen her picture? I joyfully paid
my coppers, but oh! woful disappointment! I dimly saw, within a dusty
glass case, in a dark corner, a shrivelled and blackened little thing
which might have been moulded in mud for aught I could see, but which
was labelled, "MERMAID!" So great was my disgust, so bitter my feelings
of shame and anger at having been so grossly taken in, that I did not
care to observe what might have been noteworthy in it. I read afterwards
that it was a very ingenious cheat; the trunk and head of a monkey had
been grafted on to the body and tail of a large salmon-like fish, and
the junction had been so cleverly effected, that only a very close
examination detected the artifice. It professed to have been brought
from China, but possibly was an importation even thither, if Steinmetz
is correct. According to this writer, "A Japanese fisherman contrived to
unite the upper half of a monkey to the lower half of a fish, so neatly
as to defy ordinary inspection. He then gave out that he had caught the
creature alive in his net, but that it had died shortly after being
taken out of the water; and he derived considerable pecuniary profit
from his cunning in more ways than one. The exhibition of the
sea-monster to Japanese curiosity paid well; but yet more productive was
the assertion that the half-human fish, having spoken the few minutes it
existed out of its native element, had predicted a certain number of
years of wonderful fertility, and a fatal epidemic, the only remedy for
which would be possession of the marine prophet's likeness. The sale of
these pictured mermaids was immense. Either this composite animal, or
another, the offspring of the success of the first, was sold at the
Dutch factory, and transmitted to Batavia, where it fell into the hands
of a speculating American, who brought it to Europe, and here, in the
years 1822-3, exhibited his purchase as a real mermaid at every capital,
to the admiration of the ignorant, the perplexity of the learned, and
the filling of his own purse. Indeed, the mermaids exhibited in Europe
and America, to the great profit of the enterprising showmen, have all
been of Japanese manufacture."[89]
This, however, will not account for the frequent reports of the living
creatures having been seen, and unbelievers have to form some other
hypothesis. In the tropical seas the cow-whales, uncouth marine
_pachydermata_, have been assumed to be the originals of these stories.
Megasthenes reported that the sea which washed Taprobane, the modern
Ceylon, was inhabited by a creature having the appearance of a woman;
and Ælian improves the account by stating that there are whales having
the form of satyrs. 'Tis true the Manatee and the Dugong are rather
mer-swine than mer-maids; but there is something in the bluff round head
which may remind a startled observer of the human form divine. Sir
Emerson Tennent considers that this rude approach to the human outline,
and the attitude of the mother while suckling her young, pressing it to
her breast with one paw, while swimming with the other, the head of both
being held perpendicularly above water, and then, when disturbed,
suddenly diving and displaying her broad fin-like tail,--these, together
with her habitual demonstrations of strong maternal affection, may
probably have been the original from which the pictures of the mermaid
were portrayed, and thus that earliest invention of mythical physiology
may be traced to the Arab seamen and to the Greeks, who had watched the
movements of the Dugong in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
The early Portuguese settlers in India had no doubt that true mermen
were found in those seas; and the annalist of the exploits of the
Jesuits narrates that seven of these monsters, male and female, were
captured at Manaar in 1560, and carried to Goa, where they were
dissected by Demas Bosquez, physician to the Viceroy, and "their
internal structure found to be in all respects conformable to the
human." Making allowance for the very limited acquaintance which the
worthy physician was likely to have made with human anatomy by actual
autopsy, this statement goes for little:--the real resemblance, assuming
them to have been Dugongs, was about the same as that presented by the
hog, whose inwards are popularly believed by our own country people to
be in very close accordance with those of "Christians."
Sir E. Tennent has embellished his book with a very taking portrait of
the mermaid on the Dugong hypothesis; shewing two females, each holding
a baby [is it right to say _merbaby_?], emerging from the sea-wave; they
do look, to be sure, sufficiently human, but the well-known monogram of
our clever friend Wolf in the corner of the cut suggests shrewd doubts
that the portraits were not "_ad viv_."
It is, perhaps, among the Scandinavian races that the belief in the
merman has reached its culminating point. So many particulars are
inculcated concerning the mode and conditions of life of these submarine
beings, that the most intimate relations appear to have subsisted
between the terrestrial and the aquatic peoples. According to the creed
of the Norsemen, there exists, far beneath the depths of the ocean, an
atmosphere adapted to the breathing organs of beings resembling in form
the human race, endowed with surpassing beauty, with limited
supernatural powers, but liable to suffering, and even to death. Their
dwelling is in a vast region, situate far below the bottom of the sea,
which forms a canopy over them, like the sky over us, and there they
inhabit houses constructed of the pearly and coralline productions of
the ocean. Having lungs not adapted to a watery medium, but formed for
breathing atmospheric air, it would be impossible for them to pass
through the volume of waters that separates our world from theirs, if it
were not that they possess the power of entering the skin of some marine
animal, whose faculties they thus temporarily acquire, or of changing
their own form and structure so as to suit the altered condition through
which they are to travel. The most ordinary shape they assume is, as
everybody knows, that of man (that is, their own proper form) from the
waist upward, but below that of a fish. Whether they now breathe by
gills or lungs, the anatomists, it seems, have not yet determined; we
must presume the former alternative, since else it is not apparent what
they have gained by their piscine metamorphosis of tail; though where
the branchiæ are situate we are a little at a loss to imagine. These,
however, are matters which doubtless the scientific world will one day
determine: it seems certain that they do thus acquire an amphibious
nature, so as not only to exist submerged in the waters, but to land on
the shores of our sunny world, where they frequently doff their fishy
half, resume their proper human form, and pass muster while they pursue
their investigations here.[90]
Unfortunately, but one of these resources can ever be availed of by any
individual mer-man or -maid, nor can any "son or daughter of the ocean
borrow more than one sea-dress of this kind for his own particular use;
therefore if the garb should be mislaid on the shores he never can
return to his submarine country and friends. A Shetlander, having once
found an empty seal-skin on the shore, took it home and kept it in his
possession. Soon after, he met the most lovely being who ever stepped on
the earth, wringing her hands with distress, and loudly lamenting, that,
having lost her sea-dress, she must remain for ever on the earth. The
Shetlander, having fallen in love at first sight, said not a syllable
about finding this precious treasure, but made his proposals, and
offered to take her for better or for worse, as his future wife! The
merlady, though not, as we know, much a woman of the world, very
prudently accepted the offer! I never heard what the settlements were,
but they lived very happily for some years, till one day, when the
green-haired bride unexpectedly discovered her long-lost seal-skin, and
instantly putting it on, she took a hasty farewell of everybody, and ran
towards the shore. Her husband flew out in pursuit of her, but in vain!
She sprang from point to point, and from rock to rock, till at length,
hastening into the ocean, she disappeared for ever, leaving the worthy
man, her husband, perfectly planet-struck and inconsolable on the
shore!"[91]
Nor are there lacking in the rocky cliffs of our own northern islands
fit lodgings for these sea kings and queens. The gifted pen of Sir
Walter Scott has sketched one of these from his own observation:
"Imagination can hardly conceive anything more beautiful than the
extraordinary grotto discovered not many years since upon the estate of
Alexander MacAllister, Esq. of Strathaird [in Skye]. The first entrance
to this celebrated cave is rude and unpromising: but the light of the
torches with which we were provided, was soon reflected from the roof,
floor, and walls, which seemed as if they were sheeted with marble,
partly smooth, partly rough with frostwork and rustic ornaments, and
partly seeming to be wrought into statuary. The floor forms a steep and
difficult ascent, and might be fancifully compared to a sheet of water,
which, while it rushed whitening and foaming down a declivity, had been
suddenly arrested and consolidated by the spell of an enchanter. Upon
attaining the summit of this ascent, the cave opens into a splendid
gallery, adorned with the most dazzling crystallizations, and finally
descends with rapidity to the brink of a pool, of the most limpid water,
about four or five yards broad. There opens beyond this pool a portal
arch, formed by two columns of white spar, with beautiful chasing upon
the sides, which promises a continuation of the cave. One of our sailors
swam across, for there is no other mode of passing, and informed us (as
indeed we partly saw by the light he carried) that the enchantment of
MacAllister's cave terminates with this portal, a little beyond which
there was only a rude cavern, speedily choked with stones and earth. But
the pool on the brink of which we stood, surrounded by the most fanciful
mouldings, in a substance resembling white marble, and distinguished by
the depth and purity of its waters, might have been the bathing grotto
of a naiad. The groups of combined figures projecting or embossed, by
which the pool is surrounded, are exquisitely elegant and fanciful. A
statuary might catch beautiful hints from the singular and romantic
disposition of those stalactites. There is scarce a form or group on
which active fancy may not trace figures or grotesque ornaments, which
have been gradually moulded in this cavern by the dropping of the
calcareous water hardening into petrifactions. Many of these fine groups
have been injured by the senseless rage for appropriation of recent
tourists; and the grotto has lost, (I am informed,) through the smoke of
torches, something of that vivid silver tint which was originally one of
its chief distinctions. But enough of beauty remains to compensate for
all that may be lost."[92]
But these tales are the _nugæ canoræ_ of the naturalist. Once more,--Is
there any substratum of truth underlying these fancies? or must they be
unhesitatingly dismissed to the region of fable? Certainly, if there
were not two or three narratives which have an air of veracity and
dependableness, bearing out the belief to some slight extent, I should
not have noticed it here.
How simple and circumstantial is this story told by old Hudson, the
renowned navigator! a man whose narrative is more than usually dry and
destitute of everything like, not only imagination, but even an
imaginative aspect of ordinary circumstances. On the 15th of June, when
in lat. 75°, trying to force a passage to the pole near Nova Zembla, he
records the following incident: "This morning one of our company
looking overboard saw a mermaid; and calling up some of the company to
see her, one more came up, and by that time she was come close to the
ship's side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after, a sea came
and overturned her. From the navel upward, her back and breasts were
like a woman's, as they say that saw her; her body as big as one of us;
her skin very white; and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black.
In her going down they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a
porpoise, and speckled like a mackerel. Their names that saw her were
Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner."[93]
Whatever explanation be attempted of this apparition, the ordinary
resource of seal or walrus will not avail here. Seals and walruses must
have been as familiar to these Polar mariners as cows to a dairy-maid.
Unless the whole story was a concerted lie between the two men,
reasonless and objectless,--and the worthy old navigator doubtless knew
the character of his men,--they must have seen, in the black-haired,
white-skinned creature, some form of being as yet unrecognised.
Steller, a zoologist of some repute, who examined the natural history of
the Siberian seas, reports having seen, near Behring's Straits, a
strange animal, which he calls a Sea-ape. "It was about five feet long,
with a head like a dog's; the ears sharp and erect, and the eyes large;
on both lips it had a kind of beard; the form of the body was thick and
round, but tapering to the tail, which was bifurcated, with the upper
lobe longest; the body was covered with thick hair, grey on the back,
and red on the belly. Steller could not discover any feet or paws. It
was full of frolic, and sported in the manner of a monkey, swimming
sometimes on one side of the ship and sometimes on the other, and
looking at it with seeming surprise. It would come so near the ship that
it might be touched with a pole; but if any one stirred, it would
immediately retire. It often raised one third of its body above the
water, and stood upright for a considerable time; then suddenly darted
under the ship, and appeared in the same attitude on the other side;
this it would repeat for thirty times together. It would frequently
bring up a sea plant, not unlike a bottle-gourd, which it would toss
about and catch again in its mouth, playing numberless fantastic tricks
with it."
There is nothing in this description which would exclude it from
well-recognised zoological classification. It is highly probable that it
was one of the seal tribe, but of a species, perhaps a genus, not yet
identified. All analogy would suggest that fore-paws must have been
present in an animal with a dog-like head, and clothed with hair; but
they were perhaps small,--smaller even than in other _Phocadæ_, and may
have been so concealed in the long hair, or held so closely pressed to
the body, as not to be visible. The only other difficulty is in the
posterior extremity. This is described by Steller in terms that imply a
true piscine tail, expanded in a direction vertical to the plane of the
body, and of that peculiar form called _heterocercal_, which
distinguishes the cartilaginous families of Fishes, the Sharks and Rays.
But the animal was indubitably a Mammal; and therefore we may almost
with certainty assume that, if the body terminated in a natatory
expansion, it would be, as in the whales, and manatees, a horizontal
expansion, and not a vertical one. But if the strange creature was
indeed, as I conclude, of the Phocine type, we have only to suppose the
tail, which is usually very small in this family, to have been so
greatly developed, as to exceed the united hind feet, which may have
been small, and the appearance, seen momentarily, and in the wash of the
waves, might well seem that of a heterocercal tail.
Captain Weddell, well known for his geographical discoveries in the
extreme south of the globe, relates the following story: "A boat's crew
were employed on Hall's Island, when one of the crew, left to take care
of some produce, saw an animal whose voice was even musical. The sailor
had lain down, and about ten o'clock he heard a noise resembling human
cries; and as daylight in these latitudes never disappears at this
season, he rose and looked around; but, on seeing no person, returned to
bed; presently he heard the noise again; rose a second time, but still
saw nothing. Conceiving, however, the possibility of a boat being upset,
and that some of the crew might be clinging to some detached rocks, he
walked along the beach a few steps, and heard the noise more distinctly,
but in a musical strain. Upon searching round he saw an object lying on
a rock a dozen yards from the shore, at which he was somewhat
frightened. The face and shoulders appeared of human form, and of a
reddish colour; over the shoulders hung long green hair; the tail
resembled that of the seal, but the extremities of the arms he could not
see distinctly. The creature continued to make a musical noise while he
gazed about two minutes, and on perceiving him it disappeared in an
instant. Immediately when the man saw his officer, he told this wild
tale, and to add weight to his testimony, (being a Romanist,) he made a
cross on the sand which he kissed, as making oath to the truth of his
statement. When I saw him, he told the story in so clear and positive a
manner, making oath to its truth, that I concluded he must really have
seen the animal he described, or that it must have been the effects of a
disturbed imagination."[94]
The _green_ hair in this description is the most suspicious element; it
is so exactly that attributed to the poetical mermaids, and so entirely
without precedent in the whole range of known zoology,--that, if taken
literally, I fear it would condemn the narrative. But among the
Antarctic seals, both golden yellow fur, and black fur, are found; and
if hairs of these two colours were about equally intermingled, the
result would be an olive-green, as we see in some of the monkeys; and
then some allowance must doubtless be made for imagination, in one
little accustomed to precise observation, and "somewhat frightened"
withal. I should say, with little hesitation, that this creature was of
the seal family, only that the seaman's daily habits brought him into
the most familiar contact with various kinds of seals; and, unless the
animal in question had differed notably from such as he was acquainted
with, he would not have been so affected by the phenomenon. In such
stories, the sorts of creatures familiar to the observation of the
narrator, and the amount of surprise produced in his mind by the
stranger,--must always be carefully estimated, as important elements in
the formation of our judgment.
To come nearer home, Pontoppidan records the appearance of a merman,
which was deposed to on oath by the observers: "About a mile from the
coast of Denmark, near Landscrona, three sailors, observing something
like a dead body floating in the water, rowed towards it. When they came
within seven or eight fathoms, it still appeared as at first, for it had
not stirred; but at that instant it sunk, and came up almost immediately
in the same place. Upon this, out of fear, they lay still, and then let
the boat float, that they might the better examine the monster, which,
by the help of the current, came nearer and nearer to them. He turned
his face and stared at them, which gave them a good opportunity of
examining him narrowly. He stood in the same place for seven or eight
minutes, and was seen above the water breast high. At last they grew
apprehensive of some danger, and began to retire; upon which the monster
blew up his cheeks, and made a kind of lowing noise, and then dived from
their view. In regard to his form, they declare in their affidavits,
which were regularly taken and recorded, that he appeared like an old
man, strong-limbed, with broad shoulders, but his arms they could not
see. His head was small in proportion to his body, and had short curled
black hair, which did not reach below his ears; his eyes lay deep in his
head, and he had a meagre face, with a black beard; about the body
downwards this merman was quite pointed like a fish."[95]
But the most remarkable story that I know of in recent times, is that
adduced by Dr Robert Hamilton, in his able History of the Whales and
Seals, in the _Naturalist's Library_, he himself vouching for its
general truth, from personal knowledge of some of the parties: "It was
reported that a fishing-boat, off the island of Yell, one of the
Shetland group, had captured a mermaid by its getting entangled in the
lines!! The statement is, that the animal was about three feet long, the
upper part of the body resembling the human, with protuberant mammæ like
a woman; the face, the forehead, and neck, were short and resembling
those of a monkey; the arms, which were small, were kept folded across
the breast; the fingers were distinct, not webbed; a few stiff long
bristles were on the top of the head, extending down to the shoulders,
and these it could erect and depress at pleasure, something like a
crest. The inferior part of the body was like a fish. The skin was
smooth, and of a grey colour. It offered no resistance, nor attempted to
bite, but uttered a low plaintive sound. The crew, six in number, took
it within their boat, but superstition getting the better of curiosity,
they carefully disentangled it from the lines, and a hook which had
accidentally fastened in its body, and returned it to its native
element. It instantly dived, descending in a perpendicular direction.
"After writing the above, (we are informed) the narrator had an
interview with the skipper of the boat and one of the crew, from whom he
learned the following additional particulars. They had the animal for
three hours within the boat; the body was without scales or hair; was of
a silvery grey colour above, and white below, like the human skin; no
gills were observed; nor fins on the back or belly. The tail was like
that of the dog-fish: the mammæ were about as large as those of a woman;
the mouth and lips were very distinct, and resembled the human.
"This communication was from Mr Edmonston, a well-known and intelligent
observer, to the distinguished Professor of Natural History in the
Edinburgh University, and Mr E. adds a few reflections, which are so
pertinent, that we shall avail ourselves of them. That a very peculiar
animal has been taken, no one can doubt. It was seen and handled by six
men, on one occasion, and for some time, not one of whom dreams of a
doubt of its being a mermaid. If it were supposed that their fears
magnified its supposed resemblance to the human form, it must at all
events be admitted that there was some ground for exciting these fears.
But no such fears were likely to be entertained; for the mermaid is not
an object of terror to the fisherman; it is rather a welcome guest, and
danger is to be apprehended only from its experiencing bad treatment.
The usual resources of scepticism, that the seals and other sea-animals,
appearing under certain circumstances, operating on an excited
imagination, and so producing ocular illusion, cannot avail here. It is
quite impossible that, under the circumstances, six Shetland fishermen
could commit such a mistake."[96]
There is, no doubt, much in this account which signally distinguishes it
from all other statements with which it can be compared, except that of
Hudson's sailors, with which it well coincides. The protuberant mammæ,
resembling those of a woman; the human, or at least simian face,
forehead, and neck, and especially the mouth and lips; the distinct
unwebbed fingers; the erectile crest of bristles; the nature of the
surface,--without scales or hair; the colour; and the tail,--like that
of a fish;--are all very remarkable points; and unless we conclude the
entire story to be a lie, a mere barefaced hoax,--must necessarily
indicate a creature of which scientific zoology knows absolutely
nothing.
It is observable that, here again, the tail is said to have been piscine
and heterocercal, "like that of the dog-fish:" while the naked skin, and
the colour--silvery grey above and white below,--will well agree with
the characteristics common to the smaller _Squalidæ_.
It is a pity that an account like this, avouched by six witnesses, was
not thoroughly sifted. I have no doubt that, if a person tolerably
conversant with zoology, and accustomed to the habit of
cross-examination, had examined these six eye-witnesses _separately_,
making full notes of what each could remember to have observed, and had
then checked each deposition by all the others, a mass of testimony
would have been accumulated that would in an instant have convinced any
candid inquirer what measure of truth lay in the story. Points in which
the whole six, or even three or four, agreed, might unhesitatingly have
been set down as correct: suggestive questions, (not, however,
suggesting the sort of answer,) as, "Had the creature so and so, or so
and so?" could not have received the same reply from all the deponents,
without being worthy of credence: even the points on which they would
have differed might themselves have been instructive to an intelligent
inquirer. I do not know that any such precautionary measures were
resorted to in this case, and the tale must remain as we get it; but I
make these observations for the purpose of suggesting, in the event of
any similar occurrence, the advantage of _separate_ examination in
getting at the truth. On a review of the whole evidence, I do not judge
that this single story is a sufficient foundation for believing in the
existence of mermaids; but, taken into combination with other
statements, it induces a strong suspicion that the northern seas may
hold forms of life as yet uncatalogued by science.
[87] _Geog. and Classif. of Animals_, 249.
[88] _Egypt and Mehemet Ali_, ii. p. 322.
[89] _Japan and her People_, p. 193.
[90] See Hibbert's _Shetland Islands_, p. 566.
[91] Miss Sinclair's _Shetland_.
[92] Notes to _The Lord of the Isles_.
[93] _Hudson the Navigator_, by Asher, Voy. ii.
[94] _Voyage towards the South Pole_, p. 143.
[95] Pontoppidan's _Nat. Hist. of Norway_, p. 154.
[96] _Edinburgh Magazine_, vol. xiii.
IV.
THE SELF-IMMURED.
Turning from reputed beings of which the very existence is the subject
of doubt, let us consider one or two well-known and homely creatures,
about which a certain degree of romantic interest hovers, because
conditions of life are attributed to them by popular faith, which the
general verdict of science denies.
One of the most remarkable examples in this category of _dubitanda_, is
the oft-repeated case of Toads and similar animals found inclosed within
the solid wood of living trees, or even within blocks of stone, with no
discernible communication with the external air, or at least no aperture
by which they could have entered their prison, yet, in every instance,
alive. That insuperable difficulties stand _a priori_ in the way of our
believing in such conditions, no one familiar with animal physiology can
deny; for, as Mr Bell observes, to believe that a Toad inclosed within a
mass of clay, or other similar substance, shall exist wholly without air
or food, for hundreds of years, and at length be liberated alive and
capable of crawling, on the breaking up of the matrix,--now become a
solid rock,--is certainly a demand upon our credulity which few will be
ready to answer.
Yet, after all, it is a question that must not be decided _a priori_: it
must rest upon evidence. It may be that here, too, fact is stranger than
fiction; and we must not shut our eyes and ears to concurrent credible
testimony, if it happen to bear witness to facts which we cannot account
for. Truth will certainly be upon us, even though, ostrich-like, we
thrust our head into a bush, and maintain that we cannot see it.
The learned historian of British Reptiles speaks with his characteristic
candour upon the point. He admits that the many concurrent assertions of
credible persons, who declare themselves to have been witnesses of the
emancipation of imprisoned Toads, forbid us hastily to refuse our
assent, or at least to deny the possibility of such a circumstance;
while he demands better and more cautious evidence to authorise our
implicit faith in these asserted facts.[97]
The ordinary mode of accounting for the phenomena, supposing them to be
narrated in good faith, is that the animal "fell into the hollow where
the men were at work, and was taken up by them in ignorance of the mode
in which it had come there," or that "it may have hidden in the hollow
of a tree during the autumn and winter, and on the return of spring
found itself so far inclosed within its hiding-place as to be unable to
escape." This latter suggestion would be more worthy of attention were
the winter season the period in which, in our climate, periodical
additions are made to the living wood, so as to narrow the entrance, or
in which augmentations of bulk occurred to Toads, so as to prevent them
from getting out where they got in;--but unfortunately the reverse of
both suppositions is true. As to the former suggestion, while it may
possibly serve to dismiss a few of the published statements, there are
others which it would be absurd to explain thereby.
True to its principles of never shutting the door to the investigation
of any natural history subject, the _Zoologist_ has, during the eighteen
years of its existence, been a medium for collecting and preserving
facts bearing on this question. The pages of this periodical form an
invaluable storehouse to the philosophic naturalist, who wishes to
pursue his science undeterred by the ridicule of sciolism or the frown
of authority. Let us search its treasures, then, expecting to find
stories of diverse grades of credibility, of which the editor wisely
leaves his readers to judge for themselves.
In May 1844, the Rev. J. Pemberton Bartlett of Kingston, in Kent, an
experienced naturalist, mentions the following fact as having just come
under his own notice:--"Only a few weeks since, in cutting down a
fir-tree here, the workman discovered, completely imbedded in the
centre, a Toad, which had doubtless been there some years, as the tree
had completely grown over it; it must have been kept alive by absorbing
the moisture of the tree. It was not in a completely torpid state, and
after being exposed to the air a few hours, it crawled in true toad-like
style. The age of the tree in which it was found was, as far as I could
judge from the number of circles, about twenty-five years."[98]
In reply to an inquiry whether he himself saw the Toad, and counted the
timber-rings, Mr Bartlett favours me with the following note:--
"EXBURY PARSONAGE, NEAR SOUTHAMPTON,
_February 22, 1861_.
"DEAR SIR,-- ... _I_ quite believe that Toads _do_ live in stone, but I
have found it very difficult to get the facts from eye-witnesses. The
imbedded Toad in the fir-tree, mentioned by me in the _Zoologist_, I
saw, and, as stated there, I counted the rings of the tree. I believe it
to have been the common Toad; but it looked rather more flabby, and not
quite so round in its proportions, as toads generally do; in fact,
instead of being 'puffed up' as they commonly are, it was considerably
_down in the mouth_, from its close imprisonment! The cavity in which it
was fixed appeared to have been originally a crack or fissure in the
side of the tree; whether caused by decay, or made by a nuthatch or some
other bird, I cannot say. The wound appeared to have healed, as the bark
had apparently closed over it. The question now arises, Was the Toad
_young_ when it got into the hollow? and did it grow after it became a
prisoner? Or had it come to years of discretion, when it took that
unfortunate step, or rather crawl, into the cavity where it was so long
to be imprisoned? And _why did_ it remain there so quietly, while the
bark gradually grew over its prison-house? The answer that I should
give to the first of these questions would be, that probably it had
arrived at a state of _toadhood_ when it took refuge in the tree, and
_did not_ grow afterwards. My theory why it remained ensconced there so
quietly is this, that probably it might have been accustomed for some
time to take refuge by day in this hole, from whence it would set out on
its nocturnal rambles, and probably 'not go home till morning;' that on
some occasion, 'when daylight did appear,' it returned to its accustomed
haunt, and there squatted, winking and puffing, after its night's
exploits, as toads are wont to do; that, on that luckless day, some
felled tree or trees were laid up against the fir-tree that contained
its abode, and that the tree or trees remained there till the bark
closed so as to prevent its escape. What makes this idea the more
probable is that the place where the fir-tree grew had, for probably
years, been used as a place to store felled timber, as it was used for
that purpose at the time I saw the Toad.
"After the discovery of this Toad in the fir-tree, I tried several
experiments on Toads, by burying them in closely-sealed flower-pots, at
a depth of nearly three feet. I much regret that I cannot find my notes
on the subject; but I remember perfectly the main facts of one. The Toad
was placed in a flower-pot, with another turned over it, and well
cemented together--the two holes in both pots being also closely
cemented up. It was buried between two and three feet deep in the
garden. At the end of three months I took it up, and weighed the Toad,
and found it had lost a very little in weight. This I did again at the
end of three months more; it was then quite lively, and had lost again
but little in weight. I replaced it as before, and on taking it up the
third time, I found the pots had, probably the cement not having been
dry when buried, slipped on one side, and the moisture had got in, and
consequently the poor Toad was dead, as well as buried! Now, surely if a
Toad could live _six months_ hermetically _sealed_ in a flower-pot,
without air or food--why not a much longer time?...--Believe me, yours
faithfully,
"J. PEMBERTON BARTLETT."
The Rev. W. J. Bree of Allesley, also an excellent zoologist, alluding
to some queries by Mr E. Newman, communicated the following facts:--"I
quite agree with you that the statements about Toads found in solid
stone are mostly very unsatisfactory. One instance of the kind I have
seen, as briefly stated, _Mag. Nat. Hist._, ix. 316. The Toad appeared
to me neither more nor less than our common species, although I
certainly did not examine it scientifically. The stone was the new red
sandstone of geologists; and was brought up, as I was told, some yards
from below the surface. I understood the Toad, and the two portions of
stone in which it was found inclosed, were deposited in some medical
museum at Birmingham. The animal would not have been discovered but for
an accident: the workmen were carting the stone away, and the block
containing the Toad happened to be placed on the top of a great load,
and accidentally fell from the cart to the ground, and, breaking by the
fall, brought to light the incarcerated reptile, which, I conclude, was
somewhat injured by the fall, as there was a fresh wound on one side of
the head, and it appeared to be blind of one eye. The Toad died, I was
informed, the second day after it was discovered, partly, in all
probability, in consequence of the injury. When I say the block of stone
was _solid_, this statement requires some qualification: the two parts
of the stone fitted together exactly, and quite close, except where the
cavity was in which the Toad lay; but from this cavity there was
evidently a flaw on one side towards the extremity, and a discolouring
of the substance of the sandstone, so that although the two portions
fitted together, they might not have been (on one side of the cavity)
very firmly united. This circumstance, perhaps, may detract from the
value of the example; nevertheless, it is unaccountable how the animal
could have got into the position in which it was found: it is not
conceivable, I think, that it should have been there ever since the
first formation of the rock, and there certainly appeared to be no means
by which it could have entered the rock in its present state, even
admitting (what we know to be the fact) that Toads have the power of
getting in and out of a very small orifice."
The author of the next account, signed "E. Peacock," is unknown to me;
and it does not appear whether he speaks from personal observation or
not. He says, "A few days ago, two labourers, employed at a stone quarry
at Frodingham, near Brigg, Lincolnshire, found, at a depth of five feet
below the surface of the ground, and between two blocks of stone (lias),
a living Toad: the interstice between the stones was filled with yellow
clay, and there did not appear the least possible aperture by which
anything could have passed."[99]
Even from remote India we have reports of the same phenomenon. A
correspondent from Serampore sends the _Zoologist_ the following:--"Last
Wednesday, Feb. 7, 1849, on severing the branch of a tree, apparently of
the tamarind species, I found a Toad in the centre of the wood, entirely
excluded from light and air. The appearance of the animal was rather
extraordinary. The body seemed full of air, and the skin soft and puffy,
and of a light yellowish colour, with the exception of the extremities
of the feet, which were hard and dark. The creature when exposed to the
air seemed rather uncomfortable, and drew in its head just like a turtle
when alarmed. It was thrown into a tank, when the water around, to the
space of about a foot on either side, became perfectly white, like milk.
It jumped out of the water immediately, apparently not liking the
coldness. I did not have opportunity of observing it further, which I
regret, as the animal got concealed in the long grass on the side of the
tank, and was thus lost. The general supposition as to the mode by which
animals get inclosed within trees, is their taking shelter in the cavity
of a tree when very young, and the growth of the tree filling up the
cavity, and thus imprisoning the animal. But this supposition, if true
in the present case, makes the circumstance now related the more
extraordinary. The tree is an old one, upwards of fifty feet high, and
having a trunk more than three feet in diameter; and the height from the
ground at which the Toad was found was about twelve feet. We must
suppose the Toad to have got into the tree when within a foot from the
ground: how many years old then must the animal be?"
The mention of the whitening of the water in which the Toad was immersed
is to my mind a strong corroboration of the veracity of the preceding
narrative. It is not a circumstance at all likely to occur to a mere
inventor, as it does not in the least bear on the question of
incarceration, and there is no attempt to explain it. I have
occasionally seen fluids rendered partially opaque by the outflow of a
milky secretion from animals immersed in them, as in the case of the
curious _Peripatus_ of Jamaica, which, when put alive into spirits,
discharges a considerable quantity of white fluid, which diffuses in the
alcohol. The Toad was probably distinct from our common English species,
but we know that the latter secretes a yellow acrid fluid in some
abundance in the follicles of its skin, and this might be poured out
under the excitement of alarm or anger.
In the summer of 1851, the Académie des Sciences was interested
(according to the public papers) with this question. In digging a well
at Blois, in June of that year, "some workmen drew up from about a yard
beneath the surface a large flint, weighing about fourteen pounds, and
on striking it a blow with a pickaxe, it split in two, and discovered,
snugly ensconced in the very centre, a large Toad. The Toad seemed for a
moment greatly astonished, but jumped out, and rather rapidly crawled
away. He was seized and replaced in the hole, when he settled himself
down very quietly. The stone and Toad, just as they were, were sent to
the Society of Sciences at Blois, and became immediately the subject of
curious attention. First of all, the flint, fitted together, with the
Toad in the hole, was placed in a cellar, and imbedded in moss. There it
was left for some time. It is not known if the Toad ate, but it is
certain that he made no discharge of any kind. It was found that if the
top of the stone were cautiously removed in a dark place he did not
stir, but that if the removal were effected in the light, he immediately
got out and ran away. If he were placed on the edge of the flint, he
would crawl into his hole, and fix himself comfortably in. He gathered
his legs beneath his body; and it was observed that he took especial
care of one of his feet, which had been slightly hurt in one of his
removals. The hole is not one bit larger than the body, except a little
where the back is. There is a sort of ledge on which his mouth reposes,
and the bones of the jaws are slightly indented, as if from long resting
on a hard substance. Not the slightest appearance of any communication
whatsoever between the centre and the outside of the stone can be
discovered, so that there is no reason to suppose that he could have
drawn any nourishment from the outside. The committee, consisting of
three eminent naturalists, one of whom has made Toads his peculiar
study for years, made no secret of their belief that the Toad had been
in that stone for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years; but how he could
have lived without air, or food, or water, or movement, they made no
attempt to explain. They accordingly contented themselves with proposing
that the present should be considered another authentic case, to be
added to the few hundreds already existing, of Toads being found alive
imbedded in stone, leaving it to some future savant to explain what now
appears the wonderful miracle by which Nature keeps them alive so long
in such places. But the distinguished M. Majendie suggested that it was
just possible that an attempt was being made to hoax the Academy, by
making it believe that the Toad had been found in the hole, whereas it
might only have been put in by the mischievous workmen after the stone
was broken. Terrified at the idea of becoming the laughing-stock of the
public, the Academy declined to take any formal resolution about the
Toad, but thanked the committee for its very interesting communication;
and so the subject dropped."
This statement does not, to be sure, bear about it that character of
precision which should mark the report of a scientific body, nor is it
verified by authority; but the terror ascribed to L'Académie at the idea
of being hoaxed, and the instant quashing of the inquiry, are so true to
nature, so accurately characteristic of our august associations of
savans, that I cannot help believing the story.
Here is another, which has the air of a _bonâ fide_ account, though I
have no knowledge of the writer, nor does he himself seem to pretend to
personal autopsy of the discovery.
On Monday last, September 20, while some workmen were engaged in getting
iron ore at a place called Paswick, in the north of this county,
[Derby,] they came upon a solid lump of ore, which, being heavier than
two men could lift, they set to work to break with their picks, when, to
their surprise, in a cavity near the centre of the stone, they found a
Toad alive. The cavity was much larger than the Toad, being nearly six
inches in diameter, and was lined with crystals of what I suppose to be
carbonate of lime. The stone was about four yards from the surface of
the ground; it is now in the possession of Mr Haywood of Derby, by whose
men it was found; but unfortunately the Toad was not preserved after its
death, which took place almost immediately on its exposure to the
atmosphere.[100]
_Audi alteram partem._ Mr Plant of the Salford Museum tells us, both in
sorrow and in anger, a story, doubtless more amusing to us who read it
than to him, of his adventures among the toad-finders. When geologising
in the neighbourhood of Chesterfield, a quarryman, whom he had invited
to share a bottle of porter, informed him in confidence that Toads
inclosed in stone were plentiful thereabout. "He said he had often found
them, and that he knew a stone before it was broken that would contain a
Toad; giving me long and circumstantial accounts of the whole
phenomenon: and, to convince me of the truth of his statement, he took
me to the quarry (a carboniferous sandstone) that I might see the stones
out of which he said the Toads had been released. I examined the stones
and the whole quarry very attentively, and listened to the emphatic
testimony of other miners present. After complying in an agreeable
manner to their remark that the day was warm, and the water of the
quarry not much in favour, I made a simple proposal of this nature:--I
promised to pay to any one of them the sum of twenty shillings for the
next stone in which they found a Frog or Toad when the stone was broken
in two. They should catch the Frog if he bolted out of the hole, replace
him, and fit the stones together again, afterwards despatching it to me
in that condition. I further promised to pay the sum of forty shillings
to any one of them who should procure me a stone, unbroken, in which he
considered a Toad or Frog was imprisoned, if, on breaking it myself,
such turned out to be the case. These conditions were to remain in force
for twelve months; and as the means of conveyance to my address, which I
gave them, would occasion little or no trouble, the offer was readily
accepted by the miners; who also, to express their confidence in soon
being able to supply the order, proposed that it would be all safe if I
advanced a little cash on account; which however I resolutely declined
doing. And now what will the credulous believers in these 'Toads in
stone' who read the _Zoologist_ say, when they learn that I visited the
quarry twice during the twelve months, in order to fetch the Toads
which never came by rail? I always found the men there blasting tons of
new rock, splitting stones for every building purpose, yet dry-throated
and sullen; for, alas! most unaccountably during that long twelve months
they found plenty of holes--not Toad holes--in the sandstone, but the
reptiles had been banished as effectually as ever they were from the
Emerald Isle."[101]
[Illustration: TOAD IN A HOLE.]
This was disheartening, certainly: and we do not wonder that Mr Plant
became "a total disbeliever in these 'simple tales.'" Still, it is just
possible, that immured Toads may exist, though Mikey of the Chesterfield
quarry, in hope of the advance, did brag a little too confidently of the
commonness of the occurrence. That, within one twelvemonth, within the
limits of one quarry, no such Toad turned up, even under the stimulus of
the proffered forty shillings, can scarcely be admitted to be absolutely
conclusive proof of the negative, at least not to us who were not placed
in the painful position of _gullees_. Mr Arthur Hussey of Rottingdean
justly remarks, when presenting some evidence _per contra_, that we
should not think the innocence of a culprit was established by his
asserting, when sundry witnesses affirmed they saw him commit the
offence he was accused of,--that he could produce ten times the number
who would swear they _did not_ see him.
"During the summer of 1846," writes Mr Hussey, "in the formation of a
railroad, about half a mile from Pontefract, in Yorkshire, the works
were carried a 'depth of four feet through a rock betwixt lime and
sandstone, about the junction of the two formations:' the rock being so
firm as to require blasting. 'It is entirely free from beds of any kind,
or what the workmen term "backs," running up it,' but therein are 'an
infinite number of small nodules of a harder quality, entirely
crystallised in the interior.' After blasting, the labourers were much
surprised to find among the fragments several of these nodules, each one
containing a Frog, as many as seven having been counted after one
'shot.'
"These were not casually seen when exposed, and then disregarded, but
were examined in their stone prisons through very minute holes, some
even preserved in that state for a long period. For example, the relator
states of one specimen, 'I kept this Toad in a cellar for about five
months, during which time it ate nothing, and was without light, the
hole in the stone being covered with a piece of clay, and the whole kept
moist and cool with water.' Of another he says, 'The Frog lived only
about a week, as I kept it in a place which I think was too warm for it,
and also not sufficiently dark and quiet. When the Frogs were disturbed
by the shots, their first desire seemed to be to get under shelter of
some stone, or into their old holes again, shewing thereby that sight
was not wanting, and bodily activity was perfect as far as could be
seen. One thing struck me as singular with regard to the Frog I
kept--its fresh, plump, and healthy appearance, its skin being soft and
transparent. One day, when I was holding my finger over the hole in the
stone, it pushed its head between my finger and the sides of the hole,
and drew its whole body after it on to the table, where it appeared more
like a skeleton than any living animal I have ever seen, but by degrees
it extended itself to its former dimensions.'
"Of the above curious occurrence my only knowledge is derived from the
account written to a distant friend, of which the substance has now been
extracted. The writer is an utter stranger, but he was officially
employed in the operations which resulted in the discoveries; and my
information leads me to believe his report deserving of confidence, for
which reason I have not hesitated to offer this abstract for publication
in the _Zoologist_."[102]
The Rev. Alfred Charles Smith, an excellent and genial naturalist,
favours us with another case, introducing it incidentally in
illustration of the general habit he is denouncing of wantonly
destroying animal life:--"As an instance of this thoughtless cruelty, I
must give an account that has just come to my notice. Some labourers
were pulling down an old wall, in the thickness of which they found one
of those phenomena--so frequently heard of and so unsatisfactorily
accounted for--a Toad completely imbedded in stone and mortar. 'There
was no doubt,' said the labourer who described it, 'that he had been
there for a great number of years, for there was no hole or chink by
which he could have entered or left the place of his long sojourn.'
'Well,' said the listener to his account, 'but are you sure that the
Toad was alive when you found it?' 'No doubt of that, sir,' said the
man, 'for he crawled out of his round hole and was moving away, when I
knocked him on the head with my pickaxe.'
"So here was this poor harmless creature, whose long incarceration in
his gloomy dungeon might have excited compassion in his favour, suddenly
released from his prison, only to be slain by his liberator!"[103]
The next is from the _Caledonian Mercury_. Newspaper zoology is
proverbially untrustworthy, and the editor of the _Zoologist_, who
reprints the paragraph, kindly adds a caveat for the benefit of his
readers,--"_Nimium ne crede Mercurio!_" But, nevertheless, let us look
at it: alone it would stand for little, but, remember, in such questions
as this the evidence is cumulative. "There is at present to be seen at
Messrs Sanderson and Sons, George Street, Edinburgh, an extraordinary
specimen of natural history--a Frog which had been discovered alive in
freestone rock. A few months ago, while some colliers in the employ of
Mr James Nasmyth (lessee of Dundonald Colliery, in Fife, the property of
R. B. Wardlaw Ramsay, Esq. of Whitehill), were engaged in taking out the
pavement of the seam coal, which was freestone, they discovered a cavity
in which a Frog was lying. On touching it the Frog jumped about for some
time, and a bucket of water being procured, it was put into it, and
taken to the surface. On reaching it, the animal was found to be dead.
It was at the depth of forty-five fathoms, or ninety yards from the
surface, in a perpendicular line of strata, consisting of alternate
layers of coal and freestone, with ironstone, and about four hundred
yards from the outcrop surface. The Frog seems to have much of the same
character as the present species. It is very attenuated, which cannot be
wondered at, considering its domicile for so many ages, its original
existence being of course considered contemporaneous with the formation
of the freestone rock in which it was contained."[104]
Now, again, we get the statement of a careful working naturalist, Mr
Thomas Clark of Halesleigh. He cannot, indeed, give personal authority
for what he records; but the confidence of such a man in his informant
is an element not without its value. "March 25, 1859. In the early part
of this month, two live Toads were dug out from the bottom of a bed of
stiff brick clay, in the neighbourhood of Bridgewater, at the depth of
fourteen feet from the surface of the ground; a third was killed by the
spade before they were observed. This bed of clay rests on peat, and the
Toads were found at the junction of the two beds, in a small domed
cavity, about the size of the crown of a man's hat. On being exposed to
the air, they uttered a squeaking cry, resembling that of a rat, but in
about a minute they seemed reconciled to their new destiny, and moved
freely about. They were kept in a jar for a few days, and then placed at
liberty in a garden, where I suppose they are still living. The living
ones were about two inches in length, but narrow in proportion, and of
a rather lighter colour than Toads usually are; the one which was killed
was very much larger. The clay under which they were buried had been
gradually dug out from the surface since about the beginning of the
year, but the last five feet of depth was not dug till the day on which
they were discovered. After about two feet of the surface, the clay is
very close and adhesive, and far too moist to admit of cracks being
formed in it, even in the driest summers."[105]
To this communication inserted in the _Zoologist_, Mr Newman added a
note asking the name of any scientific man who was present at the
exhumation. Mr Clark replies:--"I am unable to give such a name, further
than as the intelligent foreman of the brickyard, Thomas Duddridge, (who
witnessed the exhumation by one of the labourers of the yard,) may be
entitled to the appellation; but no one, however high his scientific
attainments, could be more careful than he was to give me correct
information, or more exact in his statements; and if, after minute
inquiry, I had not been fully satisfied of the correctness of his
account, I should not have sought to occupy the pages of the _Zoologist_
with its recital. On shewing him the notice in the _Zoologist_, he said
it was impossible for anything to be more correct; and he added, that
the little cavity which the Toads occupied was quite smooth in every
part, apparently by their long-continued movements,--as smooth, to use
his own illustration, as the inside of a China bowl."[106]
Numerous experiments have been made with a view to test the possibility
of these reputed facts. If Toads do so commonly become voluntarily or
accidentally immured, and remain without light, food, or even air, for
many years, and yet survive, let us put some Toads into similar
circumstances, keep them shut up, and, after the lapse of a sufficient
interval, examine them, and see whether they are alive or dead.
"_Experimentum faciemus in corpore vili_," as the village doctor said to
his assistant over the sick traveller.
_Probatum est!_ Besides the case mentioned in Mr Bartlett's letter
(_ante_, p. 149), the late Dr Buckland, in November 1825, instituted a
series of careful experiments, which are thus narrated by himself:--"In
one large block of coarse oolitic limestone, twelve circular cells were
prepared, each about one foot deep and five inches in diameter, and
having a groove or shoulder at its upper margin fitted to receive a
circular plate of glass, and a circular slate to protect the glass: the
margin of this double cover was closed round and rendered impenetrable
to air and water by a luting of soft clay. Twelve smaller cells, each
six inches deep and five inches in diameter, were made in another block
of compact siliceous sandstone, viz., the Pennant Grit of the coal
formation near Bristol; these cells also were covered with similar
plates of glass and slate, cemented at the edge by clay. The object of
the glass covers was to allow the animals to be inspected, without
disturbing the clay so as to admit external air or insects into the
cell. The limestone is so porous that it is easily permeable by water,
and probably also by air; the sandstone is very compact.
"On the 26th of November 1825, one live Toad was placed in each of the
above-mentioned twenty-four cells, and the double cover of glass and
slate placed over each of them, and cemented down by the luting of clay.
The weight of each Toad in grains was ascertained and noted by Dr
Daubeny and Mr Dillwyn at the time of their being placed in the cells;
that of the smallest was 115 grains, and of the largest 1185 grains. The
large and small animals were distributed in equal proportion between the
limestone and sandstone cells.
"These blocks of stone were buried together in my garden beneath three
feet of earth, and remained unopened until the 10th of December 1826, on
which day they were examined. Every Toad in the smaller cells of the
compact sandstone was dead, and the bodies of most of them so much
decayed that they must have been dead some months. The greater number of
those in the larger cells of porous limestone were alive. No. 1, whose
weight when immured was 924 grains, now weighed only 698 grains. No. 5,
whose weight when immured was 1185 grains, now weighed 1265 grains. The
glass cover over this cell was slightly cracked, so that minute insects
might have entered: none, however, were discovered in this cell; but in
another cell whose glass was broken, and the animal within it dead,
there was a large assemblage of minute insects; and a similar assemblage
also on the outside of the glass of a third cell. In cell No. 9, a Toad
which when put in weighed 988 grains, had increased to 1116 grains, and
the glass cover over it was entire; but as the luting of the cell within
which this Toad had increased in weight was not particularly examined,
it is probable there was some aperture in it by which small insects
found admission. No. 11 had decreased from 936 grains to 652 grains.
"When they were first examined in December 1826, not only were all the
small Toads dead, but the larger ones appeared much emaciated, with the
two exceptions above mentioned; we have already stated that these
probably owed their increased weight to the insects which had found
access to the cells, and become their food.
"The death of every individual of every size in the smaller cells of
compact sandstone, appears to have resulted from a deficiency in the
supply of air, in consequence of the smallness of the cells, and the
impermeable nature of the stone; the larger volume of air originally
inclosed in the cells of the limestone, and the porous nature of the
stone itself, (permeable as it is slowly by water, and probably by air,)
seem to have favoured the duration of life to the animals inclosed in
them without food.
"It should be noticed that there is a defect in these experiments,
arising from the treatment of the twenty-four Toads before they were
inclosed in the blocks of stone. They were shut up and buried on the
26th of November, but the greater number of them had been caught more
than two months before that time, and had been imprisoned all together
in a cucumber frame placed on common garden earth, where the supply of
food to so many individuals was probably scanty, and their confinement
unnatural, so that they were in an unhealthy and somewhat meagre state
at the time of their imprisonment. We can therefore scarcely argue with
certainty from the death of all these individuals within two years, as
to the duration of life which might have been maintained had they
retired spontaneously, and fallen into the torpor of their natural
hibernation in good bodily condition.
"The results of our experiments amount to this: all the Toads, both
large and small, inclosed in sandstone, and the small Toads in the
limestone also, were dead at the end of thirteen months. Before the
expiration of the second year all the large ones also were dead; these
were examined several times during the second year through the glass
covers of the cells, but without removing them to admit air; they
appeared always awake, with their eyes open, and never in a state of
torpor, their meagreness increasing at each interval in which they were
examined, until at length they were found dead; those two also which had
gained an accession of weight at the end of the first year, and were
then carefully closed up again, were emaciated and dead before the
expiration of the second year.
"At the same time that these Toads were inclosed in stone, four other
Toads of middling size were inclosed in three holes, cut for this
purpose on the north side of the trunk of an apple-tree; two being
placed in the largest cell, and each of the others in a single cell.
The cells were nearly circular, about five inches deep and three inches
in diameter; they were carefully closed up with a plug of wood, so as to
exclude access of insects, and apparently were air-tight; when examined
at the end of a year, every one of the Toads was dead, and their bodies
were decayed.
"From the fatal result of the experiments made in the small cells cut in
the apple-tree and the block of compact sandstone, it seems to follow
that Toads cannot live a year excluded totally from atmospheric air;
and, from the experiments in the larger cells within the block of
oolitic limestone, it seems also probable that they cannot survive two
years entirely excluded from food; we may therefore conclude that there
is a want of sufficiently minute and accurate observation in those so
frequently recorded cases, where Toads are said to be found alive within
blocks of stone and wood, in cavities that had no communication whatever
with the external air. The fact of my two Toads having increased in
weight at the end of the year, notwithstanding the care that was taken
to inclose them perfectly by a luting of clay, shews how very small an
aperture will admit of insects sufficient to maintain life. In the cell
No. 5, where the glass was slightly cracked, the communication though
small was obvious, but in the cell No. 9, where the glass cover remained
entire, and where it appears certain, from the increased weight of the
inclosed animal, that insects must have found admission, we have an
example of these minute animals finding their way into a cell to which
great care had been taken to prevent any possibility of access.
"Admitting, then, that Toads are occasionally found in cavities of wood
and stone with which there is no communication sufficiently large to
allow the ingress and egress of the animal inclosed in them, we may, I
think, find a solution of such phenomena in the habits of these
reptiles, and of the insects which form their food. The first effort of
the young Toad, as soon as it has left its tadpole state and emerged
from the water, is to seek shelter in holes and crevices of rocks and
trees. An individual which, when young, may have thus entered a cavity
by some very narrow aperture, would find abundance of food by catching
insects, which, like itself, seek shelter within such cavities; and may
soon have increased so much in bulk as to render it impossible to get
out again through the narrow aperture at which it entered. A small hole
of this kind is very likely to be overlooked by common workmen, who are
the only people whose operations on stone and wood disclose cavities in
the interior of such substances.
"In the case of Toads, Snakes, and Lizards, that occasionally issue from
stones that are broken in a quarry, or in sinking wells, and sometimes
even from strata of coal at the bottom of a coal-mine, the evidence is
never perfect to shew that the reptiles were entirely inclosed in solid
rock. No examination is ever made until the reptile is first discovered
by the breaking of the mass in which it was contained, and then it is
too late to ascertain, without carefully replacing every fragment, (and
in no case that I have seen reported has this ever been done,) whether
or not there was any hole or crevice by which the animal may have
entered the cavity from which it was extracted. Without previous
examination it is almost impossible to prove that there was no such
communication. In the case of rocks near the surface of the earth, and
in stone quarries, reptiles find ready admission to holes and fissures.
We have a notorious example of this kind in the Lizard found in a
chalk-pit, and brought alive to the late Dr Clark. In the case also of
wells and coal-pits, a reptile that had fallen down the well or shaft,
and survived its fall, would seek its natural retreat in the first hole
or crevice it could find, and the miner dislodging it from this cavity,
to which his previous attention had not been called, might in ignorance
conclude that the animal was coeval with the stone from which he had
extracted it.
"It remains only to consider the case (of which I know not any
authenticated example) of Toads that have been said to be found in
cavities within blocks of limestone, to which, on careful examination,
no access whatever could be discovered, and where the animal was
absolutely and entirely closed up with stone. Should any such case ever
have existed, it is probable that the communication between this cavity
and the external surface had been closed up by stalactitic incrustation,
after the animal had become too large to make its escape. A similar
explanation may be offered of the much more probable case of a live Toad
being entirely surrounded with solid wood. In each case, the animal
would have continued to increase in bulk so long as the smallest
aperture remained by which air and insects could find admission; it
would probably become torpid as soon as this aperture was entirely
closed by the accumulation of stalactite or the growth of wood. But it
still remains to be ascertained how long this state of torpor may
continue under total exclusion from food and from external air: and,
although the experiments above recorded shew that life did not extend
two years in the case of any one of the individuals which formed the
subjects of them, yet, for reasons which have been specified, they are
not decisive to shew that a state of torpor, or suspended animation, may
not be endured for a much longer time by Toads that are healthy and well
fed up to the moment when they are finally cut off from food, and from
all direct access of atmospheric air.
"The common experiment of burying a Toad in a flower-pot covered with a
tile, is of no value unless the cover be carefully luted to the pot, and
the hole at the bottom of the pot also closed, so as to exclude all
possible access of air, earthworms, and insects. I have heard of two or
three experiments of this kind, in which these precautions have not been
taken, and in which at the end of a year the Toads have been found alive
and well.
"Besides the Toads inclosed in wood and stone, four others were placed
each in a small basin of plaster of Paris, four inches deep and five
inches in diameter, having a cover of the same material carefully luted
round with clay; these were buried at the same time and in the same
place with the blocks of stone, and on being examined at the same time
with them in December 1826, two of the Toads were dead, the other two
alive, but much emaciated. We can only collect from this experiment,
that a thin plate of plaster of Paris is permeable to air in a
sufficient degree to maintain the life of a Toad for thirteen months.
"In the 19th Vol., No. I, p. 167, of _Sillimans American Journal of
Science and Arts_, David Thomas, Esq. has published some observations on
Frogs and Toads in stone and solid earth, enumerating several authentic
and well-attested cases. These, however, amount to no more than a
repetition of the facts so often stated and admitted to be true, viz.,
that torpid reptiles occur in cavities of stone, and at the depth of
many feet in soil and earth; but they state not anything to disprove the
possibility of a small aperture, by which these cavities may have had
communication with the external surface, and insects have been admitted.
"The attention of the discoverer is always directed more to the Toad
than to the minutiæ of the state of the cavity in which it was
contained."
The importance of these experiments, the care with which they were
instituted, the deserved reputation of the experimenter, and the
philosophic character of his inferences, will, I trust, apologise for
the extent of this quotation. I do not think, however, that the question
is settled by them; and I will venture to make one or two comments on
the facts and on the observations.
Dr Buckland allows that the circumstances of the incarceration of his
Toads were not natural. This seems to me an element of more importance
than he attributes to it. They were shut up while in active life, after
having been confined for two months on scanty food;--"So that they were
in an _unhealthy and somewhat meagre_ state at the time of their
imprisonment." We do not know what conditions, what natural provisions
precede torpidity and are essential to it; but possibly there are some,
which in these cases were compulsorily precluded by human interference.
It is stated that the animals that survived to the second year were
always found awake when examined,--"_never in a state of torpor_." But
Toads that had hid themselves would have been torpid during the winter
months; and thus we have a sufficient proof that a natural condition of
body had been by some means prevented. The experiment would be much more
fair to the Toad, and much more conclusive to me, if the animal were
inclosed during the depth of its winter-sleep, care being taken to
handle it as little as possible.
As it was, however, _most of the Toads_ inclosed in the limestone
_survived upwards of thirteen months_. This surely is a very remarkable
fact. Take the case of No. 9. Here was a Toad, nearly full grown, which
had been shut up in a stone cell, covered with a plate of glass
carefully luted down all round, so as to exclude air, buried under three
feet of earth, so as to exclude the smallest gleam of light; yet, at the
expiration of thirteen months, the cell being examined in winter, when
normally all Toads ought to be sound asleep, this Toad was wide awake,
not in the least emaciated, but so thriving in its strange dungeon as
actually to have made 128 grains of flesh! to have actually increased in
weight at the rate of 12-1/2 per cent.!
Dr Buckland says, "It is probable there was some aperture in the luting
by which small insects found admission." But this is altogether a
_petitio principii_: it absolutely begs the question at issue. Are not
these insects entirely gratuitous? The luting was, of course, carefully
laid on: there could be no drying to cause contraction, buried as it was
in the earth; the glass was uninjured; no orifice was detected; and yet,
forsooth, it must be assumed that "small insects found admission." Then,
too, consider the problem. It is not the possibility that a
microscopically minute insect or two may have managed in some
inscrutable way to insinuate themselves, but insects sufficient to
support this large Toad for thirteen months, and to make it at the end
of that time 128 grains heavier than it was when first inclosed! There
is the fact, as stated by this careful observer; and I am sure his
hypothesis of intrusive insects will not account for it.
I might make similar remarks on No. 5. The glass was "_slightly_
cracked." No insects were discovered in it; nor is any perceptible
orifice alluded to; yet this Toad had increased from 1185 grains to 1265
grains. The "_slight_ crack" in the glass makes this example less
remarkable at first sight than the other; but in reality it is equally
inscrutable. Insects, however minute, do not pass through glass merely
cracked; but the requirement is the admission of insects enough to make
an increase of flesh of 80 grains' weight, besides maintaining the waste
of the Toad during thirteen months. Where, in each case, was the
excrement corresponding to such an augmentation? An insect-diet, as
every naturalist knows, leaves a very considerable residuum of
indigestible, incorruptible, chitinous matter: the f{oe}cal remains of
an insect-diet sufficient to keep an adult Toad in condition for
thirteen months, and leave him 128 grains heavier than at first, would
form no inconsiderable or inconspicuous mass. Yet the silence of the
observer on so conclusive an evidence proves that it was utterly
wanting.
The Toads which survived longest were the largest specimens. Perhaps it
requires a condition of peculiar vigour to bear the incarceration. Even
these were all dead before two years had elapsed. But then it must be
remembered that they had been disturbed: they had been taken out,
handled, and weighed, and replaced; and during the second year they had
been examined "several times." Air, it is true, was not admitted in
these later examinations; but _light was_; and it may be that the
absence of all external stimulus (and light is a potent one) is
indispensable to the prolongation of vitality under conditions so
abnormal.
No one supposes that incarceration in solid rock is an ordinary event in
the life of even a Toad. However it occur,--granting that it may
occur,--it must surely be a rare accident happening to an individual
here and there, from which millions of Toads are exempt. We may
reasonably suppose, too, that not one in a hundred so accidentally
incarcerated would survive, the accident in the majority of cases
proving fatal. If we bear in mind these not unreasonable presumptions,
we shall not hastily decide that all the recorded discoveries of Toads
immured are proved false and impossible, because we have not succeeded
in finding a case of longevity out of four-and-twenty Toads, many of
them little ones, which we took and violently immured at our pleasure.
To my own mind these interesting experiments are far more corroborative
than contradictory of the popular belief. The amazing fact remains, that
an adult vertebrate air-breathing animal can certainly live, and
increase in size, shut up in a stone cell, debarred from light and air
and food, for a period between one and two years! What have we parallel
to this in the whole range of natural history? _C'est le premier pas qui
coûte._ After the first year has passed so auspiciously, why may not a
second? a third? and so indefinitely--under circumstances peculiarly
favouring? It is by no means certain that there are not such favouring
circumstances, because we cannot precisely predicate what they are. And
if we admit the reported cases to be--only a few of them--true, we
cannot evade the conclusion, that the longevity of these imprisoned
Toads must be immense, incalculable. For a Toad that emerges when a
block of stone is split up, from a matrix that fits (say somewhat
roughly, if you please) its form and size, must have been there ever
since the stone was in a soft state, how long soever that may have
been. Nor does it in the least affect the question, that there may have
been some minute crack in the matrix through which insects, sufficient
to support life, entered. This circumstance, I say, if satisfactorily
proved, would not touch the question of time. And surely it is a marvel
of colossal magnitude that a vertebrate animal should have maintained
its life shut up in a mass of stone ever since the deposition of the
matter in a solid form, even though we be able to eliminate from it the
element of total abstinence during the entire period.
But facts are upon record which prove the possibility of Toads surviving
a protracted incarceration, effected by man, and therefore without their
will. In 1809, on opening a gap in a wall at Bamborough, in
Northumberland, for the passage of carts, a Toad, which had been
incarcerated in the centre of a wall, was found alive, and set at
liberty. A mason, named George Wilson, when building this wall, sixteen
years before, had wantonly immured the animal, in a close cavity formed
of lime and stone, just sufficient to contain it, and which he plastered
so closely as seemingly to prevent the admission of air. When
discovered, it seemed at first, as must naturally be supposed, in a very
torpid state; but it soon recovered animation and activity, and, as if
sensible of the blessings of freedom, made its way to a collection of
stones, and disappeared.[107]
Mr F. W. L. Ross of Broadway House, near Topsham, an acute and
experienced naturalist, narrates the following circumstances:--"In the
year 1821, I was residing in the country, and in my court-yard was a set
of stone steps for mounting on horseback. These being useless to me, I
desired they might be removed. On taking them down, the lowest step, a
coarse red conglomerate, measuring about three feet in length, ten
inches in depth, and about fourteen in width, was raised by a heavy bar.
It had been well bedded in mortar, in which, while soft, a Toad had been
evidently placed, as there was no appearance of any way by which it
could have found ingress or egress, the mould or cast being as perfect
as if taken in plaster. On the removal of the stone, the Toad remained
torpid for a few minutes, when it seemed to revive, and then crept out.
From the owners of the property I ascertained that the steps had been
placed there forty-five years before, and, to the best of their
knowledge, had never been moved.
"The second account is from a clergyman, and originated in my informing
him of the above. He caused a pit to be dug in his garden, six feet
deep; at the bottom was laid a slate, on which a full-sized Toad was
placed, with an inverted flower-pot over it. The hole and edges were
well luted with clay; the pit was then filled in, and on that day twelve
months reopened, when the Toad was found alive, and as well as when
inclosed in its living tomb. If, therefore, it could exist in such a
state for twelve months, it is not impossible that it might do so for a
much longer period."[108]
These curious facts derive confirmation and augmented interest from
some apparently parallel conditions observed of other animals, widely
removed in the organic scale from the Reptilia, and that on both sides.
Some glimpses of an indefinitely protracted torpidity in Wasps are given
to us in a communication from an eminent entomologist, Mr G. Wailes of
Newcastle, to the Entomological Society of London, and published in
their "Proceedings" of March 5, 1860. These Rip Van Winkles of the
insect race choose, it seems, the tops of loftiest mountains for going
to their long sleep. Who knows what might be found if a clever
insect-hunter were to go stone-turning on the peaks of Ararat? Read the
following, young enterprising entomologists! and set out.
"It is very evident that we have a great deal yet to learn about the
Social Wasps, and therefore the following remarks as to _Vespa vulgaris_
may be interesting. Ever since 1829 I have, at intervals, searched the
summit of Skiddaw (3022 feet) for specimens of _Leistus montanus_, and
on every occasion have taken out from underneath the loose fragments of
the slate perfectly torpid females of this Wasp, with the wings, legs,
antennæ, &c., precisely in the state in which we find them during winter
in the lower lands. Not unfrequently I have met with dead specimens
which seemed to have perished in the same dormant state, and been there
for a year or two at least. Mr Smith, in his catalogue of the British
Vespadæ, under this species, states that Mr Wollaston found the female
abundant under stones on the extreme summit of Gribon Oernant, near
Llangollen, in September 1854, adding, 'probably hybernating for the
winter,' but had evidently forgotten my writing to him on the subject.
My visits to the mountain have extended from the latter end of June to
the latter end of August, and therefore it necessarily follows that
either these specimens of the female Wasp were those of the previous
year, or that this sex appears much earlier in the season than has
hitherto been supposed. But in either case the question arises, why are
they torpid during these the hottest months of the year? It is quite
true that the temperature of the altitude is below that of the plains,
especially during the night, and I have myself been enveloped in falling
sleet and snow more than once, both in June and August, though, as a
rule, the Cumberland mountains seldom have a thick covering of snow, and
often only a few inches once or twice in the winter. Still, the
temperature of ordinary mountains always approaches that of the plains
in summer, and, one would have expected, was in Britain at least
sufficiently high to rouse these Wasps in their winter quarters, when
every other insect under the same stones was active and stirring, and
the air so warm and bright that _Larentia salicata_ and _Crambus
furcatillus_ were sporting in the mid-day sun above them. Such, however,
was not the case, and when turned out of their snug, dry quarters, they
allowed themselves to be handled and put into pill-boxes just as they do
in winter. We may therefore ask, when are these sleepers to awake? for
as the ground temperature reaches its maximum during the months in which
I have met with them, and Mr Wollaston has found them in a similar
state in September, when a declining temperature has set in, we must
conclude that for that year all prospect of their subsequent issue from
their retreats through the influence of heat is barred. Can this be
called hybernation, as it is usually understood? Or is there some other
cause of torpidity besides mere cold? Or are we to conclude that when
once put to sleep in these lofty regions, they wake no more unless
kindly removed into a milder clime by a stray entomologist, when, as I
have always noticed, they become as active as those of the warm
lowlands?"[109]
Mr Westwood, in the conversation that ensued on this communication,
suggested that these female Wasps had been the founders of colonies in
the preceding spring, and, after performing their maternal duties, had
retired to die in the situations in which they were found by Mr Wailes.
But with all due deference to so great an authority, is not this another
example of those "explanations" which are thrown off without a due
consideration of the exigencies of the case in hand--explanations which
really explain nothing? For though this hypothesis might account for
Wasps found under such conditions in June, it will not do for the
September findings. Insects that had performed the end of their
existence and had retired to die in June, would not live through July
and August, and be found alive in September. Besides, Mr Wailes
distinctly affirms, that _they always become active_ when removed to a
milder clime, which is proof positive that they had not retired to die.
Mr Smith's hypothesis, that they are "probably hybernating for the
winter," will not account for their torpidity in June and July. Mr
Westwood's hypothesis, that they are moribund individuals after their
spring work, will not explain their vitality till September, and their
revivification when removed.
But these are insects; and the difference between vertebrate and
invertebrate life is so vast that, after all, the possibilities of the
latter may not have much bearing on those of the former. What, then,
shall we say to an indefinite prolongation of life under like dreary
conditions in--_Bats_? _Bats_, which are true vertebrata; and no
amphibia grovelling at the bottom of the vertebrate ladder, where the
dim flame of spinal life is just glimmering in the socket, but
_Mammalia_, and those of nearly the highest type;--_Bats_, which Linnæus
associated with _Homo sapiens_ himself in his first Order _Primates_!
Can _these_ live for years shut up from light and food and air? these
great-chested, well-lunged, warm-blooded, aerial quadrupeds?
"Impossible! I would not believe it, if----" Stay! make no rash vows;
but read, weigh, and judge. Remember,--both the following statements are
by clergymen, each of whom is a well-known, careful, experienced
naturalist.
"A very curious instance," says Mr Pemberton Bartlett, "of the great
length of time that a Bat can remain in a state of torpidity, came under
my notice about three weeks since; and as I believe instances of the
kind are but rarely observed, perhaps an account of the facts of the
case may not prove uninteresting. Upon opening a vault in Bishopsbourne
church, the bricklayer observed a large Bat clinging to the wall.
Thinking it a curious thing to find a Bat in a vault which he knew had
not been opened for twenty years, in the evening he sent it to me by his
boy, who, when he arrived at the door, was tempted to open the basket to
look at the inmate, when most unfortunately it made its escape, and
flitted into a leaden spout which was placed against the house, from
whence I was unable to recover it. Upon learning the particulars of its
discovery, I made a careful search about the vault, but was unable to
trace any hole or crack through which the smallest Bat could have crept.
The bricklayer also informed me that there was no place where a Bat
could have entered, in the part where he opened the vault, as the
entrance was bricked up, and over the steps was a slab which fitted
close. If, indeed, it had been possible for a Bat to have got between
this, the brickwork at the entrance would most effectually have
prevented it from finding an asylum in the vault. The natural inference
therefore is, that the Bat must have got into the vault when it was last
opened, and consequently had been entombed since the year 1823! It was
most unfortunate that I was unable to decide what species it was; but,
from the bricklayer's description, I think it must have been
_Vespertilio Pipistrellus_. When first taken out of the vault it was in
a torpid state, but the effects of the air may be imagined from its
taking the first opportunity to escape in the evening; it flew,
however, far more 'leaden winged' than ever bats are wont to fly, which
was by no means marvellous, when we consider it had been out of practice
for twenty-one years."[110]
The next account, by the Rev. A. C. Smith, of Yatesbury Rectory, Calne,
is one of peculiar interest. The narrator actually witnessed the
discovery. His investigation was pursued with the cautious care, and his
statement is made with the precision, which belong to science; and the
details are so full, and his remarks so appropriate, that though the
story is somewhat long, I cannot bring myself to abridge it. It bears
date, Feb. 18, 1854. Of course, the reader will note how these two
narratives yield each other mutual corroboration.
"While effecting some repairs in the pavement of the aisle of my church,
a short time since, the masons found it necessary to remove some bricks
from the solid wall of an adjacent vault, in order the better to adjust
an iron bar intended to support the superincumbent flagstone. It seems
that one or two bricks being removed, and several large and handsome
coffins being exposed to view, curiosity tempted one of the workmen to
reach his hand in with a lighted candle, in order to see the names and
dates on the coffins; the result of which investigation shewed that the
last coffin was placed there in 1748. During this search I entered the
church, just in time to witness the extreme surprise, and the no little
consternation, of the man, whose hand had suddenly come in contact with
a Bat, suspended from the roof of the vault. The Bat was soon brought
to light; and, in its half-torpid state, placed in my hand. We then
proceeded to make a very minute examination of this vault with a lighted
candle, in order to discover, if possible, by what means the Bat could
have penetrated to its resting-place: but, although our search was very
careful and long continued, we failed to discover the smallest crack or
crevice in which a pin could be thrust. The roof was an arch of brick,
surmounted by flagstones; the sides were solid masonry, bearing no
appearance internally of decay; and the position of the vault was very
near the centre of the church: so that I was much puzzled to account for
the occurrence of the Bat in a place apparently hermetically sealed for
above a hundred years; and knew not how to combat the opinion of the
workmen, that it must have been entombed there alive since the year
1748.
"I now proceeded to institute inquiries regarding the vault in which the
Bat was found. The marble monument above, recorded the names of an old
Wiltshire family long since extinct in these parts, and the dates of the
three coffins below, corroborating the statement of the brass plate,
that the individual last buried died A.D. 1748. Several old men in the
parish remembered an adjacent vault being opened, when they were boys,
nearly sixty years since: but all positively denied that the vault in
question had ever been opened in their lives: and one, a very old man,
formerly clerk, and whose then residence abutted on the churchyard, was
very emphatic on this point. So that I am constrained to believe that
the vault has remained untouched since it received its last occupant, a
hundred and six years ago: and I am the more convinced of this from the
excessive freshness of the last coffin, the brass plate and nails of
which are as bright, and its whole appearance as new, as if it had been
placed there but yesterday, which would not have been the case had the
external air been admitted at any time since the vault was closed.
"During the time of the examination of the vault, the Bat was held in my
hand, and above an hour must have elapsed since its capture before I was
enabled to take it to the Rectory, and place it under an inverted glass:
by this time the warmth of my hand had considerably revived it, and it
wandered round its prison, snuffing about with its curious nose, and
standing up, and trying to hook itself on to the smooth glass, which
baffled all its attempts. As it obstinately refused to eat small pieces
of chopped meat, with which I tempted it to break its fast, which may
have continued a hundred and six years, and after which I should have
imagined it to be ravenous; and as it lay on its side, apparently in a
dying state, humanity urged me to give it a chance of life, by restoring
it to liberty, and I accordingly carried it to the garden, where I
placed it upon the turf, and watched its movements. At first it clung to
the blades of grass, and shivered a good deal; presently it fluttered
along the ground; soon it rose upon the wing, though in an awkward
manner, and although it sank several times, as if about to fall to the
ground, and as if it had not found the use of its wings, (which might
have been a little stiff for want of exercise, if they had been closed
above a hundred years), it passed behind a clump of trees and I saw it
no more; and then I began to regret, when too late, that I had not made
more efforts to keep it alive and watch its recovery. I know little of
the different species of Bats, but, from its diminutive size, and
extremely long ears, I should imagine it to be the _Vespertilio auritus_
of Gilbert White.
"Now, if the hypothesis be deemed absurd that the Bat had been immured
in the vault since 1748, how then are we to account for its presence
there? For although I am aware that a Bat, and especially one of the
smallest species, would creep through a very small crack or crevice, yet
the evidence of my own senses, after a very close examination, convinces
me that not even the smallest crack existed between the bricks of the
vault; and I think the evidence no less conclusive that the vault has
remained untouched for a great number of years. Again, notwithstanding
the disbelief of some, it is very generally acknowledged that Toads do
occasionally exist in blocks of stone and in timber; and the material in
which they are inclosed having gradually formed around them, they must
necessarily have been entombed, in some well-authenticated cases, for a
very long period of time. Why then, I ask, should we deny that to be
possible with the Bat, which we so readily concede to be an occurrence
by no means unusual with the Toad? I own, that, taking all these things
into account, and finding no other possible solution for the mystery, I
came to the conclusion, after mature deliberation, that the Bat had
been entombed in the vault since it last was opened in the year 1748.
That impression has increased upon longer reflection, and has been
further strengthened almost into certainty, from the perusal of a very
interesting and very similar case, recorded by the Rev. J. P. Bartlett
in an early volume of the _Zoologist_ (_Zool._, 613.)[111] That
gentleman states, that on opening a vault which had been closed for
twenty-one years, a Bat was discovered in a torpid state; that he
himself made a very careful search about the vault, and was unable to
discover any crack through which the smallest Bat could have crept; that
the vault was surrounded with brickwork; the entrance was bricked up,
and over the steps was placed a close-fitting slab; and that he could
come to no other conclusion than that the Bat had been inclosed there
for twenty-one years. I confess that I quite agree in opinion with Mr
Bartlett, and believe that the Bat discovered in the vault in
Bishopsbourne church crept in on the occasion of its last opening: and
so in the like manner with the one found in my own church; for although
there is unquestionably a vast difference between twenty-one and a
hundred and six years, yet, if we can establish the fact of a Bat
remaining torpid for the shorter period, I find no difficulty in
understanding that a sleep which would endure so long as that did, might
be protracted to a far longer period. It is most probable that many will
differ from me in opinion, and perhaps some will ridicule the idea: if
they can discover any other probable or even possible means of
accounting for the presence of the Bat in the vault, exclusive of a
crack or chink in it, or of its having been opened within the memory of
living man, both of which views I firmly oppose, I shall feel greatly
obliged by their stating their opinions in the _Zoologist_: meanwhile I
hold to my belief, that the Bat had been there for not less than _one
hundred and six years_!"[112]
[97] Bell's _Brit. Rept._ (1839), 112.
[98] _Zoologist_, 614.
[99] _Zool._, 1879.
[100] _Zool._, 3632.
[101] _Zool._, 3808.
[102] _Zool._, 3848.
[103] _Zool._, 3904.
[104] _Zool._, 5959.
[105] _Zool._, 6537.
[106] _Ibid._, 6565.
[107] Richardson's _Borderer's Table Book_, iii. 92.
[108] _Zool._, 3266.
[109] _Zool._, 6941.
[110] _Zool._, 613.
[111] See page 183, _ante_.
[112] _Zool._, 4245.
V.
HYBERNATION OF SWALLOWS.
What becomes of our swallows in the winter? They migrate, you reply,
to a warmer parallel. That is true, no doubt; though there have not
been wanting naturalists of respectable name who have maintained that
none of them ever leave the country. No doubt, however, they do migrate;
but is this true of the entire body, or only of a portion? That the
whole hirundinal population--swifts, swallows, martins, and
bank-martins--disappear from view, every one knows; for who ever saw any
of the tribe wheeling and traversing through the sky in the frosts of
January or February? But so do the Bats and the Butterflies. Now, the
Bats hybernate with us, concealing themselves in crevices, caves, hollow
trees, unused buildings, and similar places; so do the house-flies; so
do the butterflies, some species at least, and many other insects. Do
the Swallows hybernate? That they do is a very old opinion; and those
homely but wide-spread rhymes that record so many accepted facts in
popular natural history, record _this_ as a fact. Our rustic children
sing--
"The bat, the bee, the butterfly,
The cuckoo and the swallow,
The corn-crake and the wheat-ear,
They all sleep in the hollow."
Local variations--what we may call _lectiones variæ_--exist; for
example, in the south-east of our island, the third line runs,
"The corn-crake and the _nightingale_."
In the north of Europe an opinion has long prevailed that the Swallows
not only hybernate in a state of torpidity, but, like the frogs and
toads, retire to the bottoms of pools to spend that dreary season. In
Berger's "Calendar of Flora," published in the _Am{oe}nitates
Academicæ_, vol. iv., he puts down as the phenomenon proper to the 22d
of September, "_Hirundo submergitur_," talking, as Gilbert White
remarks, as familiarly of the Swallows going under water, as he would of
his poultry going to roost at sunset. Klein, and even Linnæus himself,
adopted this strange opinion, which was considered to rest upon good
testimony, and that not only of the illiterate and unobservant.
Etmuller, who was Professor of Anatomy and Botany at Leipsig in the
middle of the seventeenth century, says, "I remember to have found more
than a bushel would hold of Swallows closely clustered among the reeds
of a fish-pond under the ice, all of them to appearance dead, but with
the heart still pulsating." And Derham, the acute author of
"Physico-theology," citing this statement, adds, "We had at a meeting of
the Royal Society, February 12, 1713, a further confirmation of Swallows
retiring under water in the winter from Dr Colas, a person very curious
in these matters, who, speaking of their way of fishing in the northern
parts by breaking holes and drawing their nets under the ice, saith,
that he saw sixteen Swallows so drawn out of the Lake of Lamrodt, and
about thirty out of the king's great pond in Rosneilen; and that at
Schlehitten, near a house of the Earl of Dohna, he saw two Swallows just
come out of the waters, that could, scarcely stand, being very wet and
weak, with their wings hanging on the ground; and that he observed the
Swallows to be often weak for some days after their appearance."[113]
The Academy of Upsal received the winter submersion of the Swallows as
an undoubted fact, and even Cuvier admits as "well authenticated, that
they fall into a lethargic state during winter, and even that they pass
that season at the bottom of marshy waters."[114] One would think that a
zoological statement which Linnæus and Cuvier accepted, must be fact;
yet it remains utterly improbable. In Germany, a reward of an equal
weight in silver was publicly offered to any one who should produce
Swallows found under water, but we are assured that no one was found to
claim the money.
We may safely dismiss the notion of submersion till better
authenticated; but that of torpidity is still open to examination.
Statements to the effect that quantities of Swallows in a death-like
condition have been found in hollow trees, holes in cliffs, banks, &c.,
are even more common than those of their submersion; and they seem to
obtain credence in all the temperate or cold regions where the Swallows
are found. It is hard to think that a persuasion so widely diffused can
be wholly groundless.
Peter Collinson, the friend and correspondent of Linnæus, communicated
to the Royal Society the following statement by M. Achard:--"In the
latter end of March I took my passage down the Rhine to Rotterdam. A
little below Basel, the south bank of the river was very high and steep,
of a sandy soil, sixty or eighty feet above the water.
"I was surprised at seeing, near the top of the cliff, some boys tied to
ropes, hanging down doing something. The singularity of these
adventurous boys, and the business they so daringly attempted, made us
stop our navigation, to inquire into the meaning of it. The waterman
told us they were reaching the holes in the cliffs for Swallows or
Martins, which took refuge in them, and remained there all the winter,
until warm weather, and then they came abroad.
"The boys being let down by their comrades to the holes, put in a long
rammer, with a screw at the end, such as is used to unload guns, and,
twisting it about, drew out the birds. For a trifle I procured some of
them. When I first had them, they seemed stiff and lifeless; I put one
of them in my bosom, between my skin and shirt, and laid another on a
board, the sun shining full and warm upon it; and one or two of my
companions did the like. That in my bosom revived in about a quarter of
an hour; feeling it move, I took it out to look at it; but perceiving it
not sufficiently come to itself, I put it in again; in about another
quarter, feeling it flutter pretty briskly, I took it out, and admired
it. Being now perfectly recovered, before I was aware, it took its
flight; the covering of the boat prevented me from seeing where it went.
The bird on the board, though exposed to a full sun, yet, I presume from
a chilliness of the air, did not revive so as to be able to fly."[115]
On this account I may observe that Collinson would hardly have been the
medium of this communication, unless he had been satisfied of the
probity of his correspondent. The time was "the latter end of March," a
fortnight at least before the arrival of the Sand Martin--the earliest
of our migrants; and the whole enterprise of the boys, and the
familiarity of the waterman with the circumstance, as well as their
assertions, shew that they, at least, had no doubt about this being a
case of hybernation. Yet the repeated exploration of the Sand Martin's
burrows in this country, in winter, has produced no birds.
White of Selborne, who was very much interested in the solution of this
question, mentions two instances--both, however, on hearsay evidence. A
clergyman assured him that, when he was a boy, some workmen, in pulling
down the battlements of a tower, early in spring, found two or three
Swifts _among the rubbish_, which appeared dead, but revived in the
warmth. The other account was that of the fall of a portion of the cliff
near Brighton in winter, when many persons found Swallows among the
rubbish; but here even White's informant did not see the birds, but was
merely told of them.[116]
Bishop Stanley, in his "Familiar History of Birds," has collected some
stories which appear circumstantial enough, if we could be quite sure
they were authentic; on which point the good bishop seems to give the
weight of his own character, since he observes that they are "cases
which have come to our knowledge, on the most respectable authority."
"On the 16th of November 1826, a gentleman residing near Loch Awe, in
Scotland, having occasion to examine an out-house, used as a cart-shed,
saw an unusual appearance upon one of the rafters which crossed and
supported the thatched roof. Upon mounting a ladder, he found to his
astonishment that this was a group of Chimney-swallows (_Hirundo
rustica_) which had taken up their winter quarters in this exposed
situation. The group consisted of five, completely torpid: and none of
the tribe to which they belonged had been seen for five or six weeks
previously: he took them in his hand, as they lay closely and coldly
huddled together, and conveyed them to his house, in order to exhibit
them as objects of curiosity to the other members of his family. For
some time they remained to all appearance lifeless; but the temperature
of the apartment into which they were carried being considerably raised
by a good turf fire, they gradually evinced symptoms of reanimation; and
in less than a quarter of an hour, finding that they were rather rudely
handled, all of them recovered, so as to fly impatiently round the room,
in search of some opening by which they might escape. The window was
thrown up, and they soon found their way into the fields, and were never
seen again. A similar circumstance, though, from the place of its
discovery it must refer probably to Sand Martins, was related by a
gentleman who found two Swallows in a sand-bank at Newton, near
Stirling, quite dormant.
"Again, about half-a-dozen Swallows were found a few years ago, in a
torpid state, in the trunk of a hollow tree, by a countryman, who
brought them to a respectable person, by whom they were deposited in a
desk, where they remained forgotten till the following spring, when, one
morning, on hearing a noise, he opened the desk, and found one of them
fluttering about: the others also began to shew signs of life, and upon
being placed out of doors in the sun, speedily arranged their plumage,
took wing, and disappeared.
"On the 2d of November 1829, at Loch Ransa, in the island of Arran, a
man, while digging in a place where a pond had been lately drained off,
discovered two Swallows in a state of torpor; on placing them near the
fire, they recovered. One unfortunately escaped, but the other was kept
by the man, for the purpose of shewing it to some scientific persons."
In North America there is a curious species of Swift, (_Acanthylis
pelasgia_,) which associates in immense flocks to roost in chimneys and
hollow trees. It is the popular belief that these birds spend the winter
in a torpid condition in their roosting trees. Williams, in his "History
of Vermont," speaks of a large hollow elm which had been for many years
appropriated to this purpose. A farmer resident close to the tree was
persuaded that it was the winter dwelling-place of the Swifts, and
avoided felling it on that account. About the 1st of May, he always saw
them come out of it in large numbers, about the middle of the day, and
in a short time return. Then, as the weather grew warmer, they came
forth in increased multitudes in the morning, and did not return till
night. A similar account was given of another tree: the first appearance
of the Swifts in spring was always their emergence from its hollow
trunk, and their last, in September, was their ingress. Yet Wilson, the
great ornithologist of America, argues, not without some heat, yet with
considerable force, that such a belief is erroneous. Erroneous,
certainly, the supposition that the whole body of the Chimney-swifts so
hybernate; but whether a few do or do not, his arguments do not quite
conclude.
The rustic quatrain, quoted in the outset of this disquisition, mentions
the Corncrake, as associated with the Swallow in this winter-sleep,--"in
the hollow." It is curious that two modern instances are on record of
hybernating Corncrakes, though this is certainly as migratory a species
with us as the _Hirundinidæ_. A farmer at Aikerness in Orkney, about
midwinter, in demolishing a mud-wall, found a Corncrake in the midst of
it. It was apparently lifeless; but being fresh to the feel and smell,
it was placed in the warmth. In a short time it began to move, and in a
few hours was able to walk about, and lived for two days in the kitchen;
when refusing all food, or rather, none that suited it being then
obtainable, it died.[117]
"The second case occurred at Monaghan, in Ireland, where a gentleman,
having directed his labourers, in winter, to remove a large heap of
manure, that had remained undisturbed for a great length of time,
perceived a hole, which was supposed to have been made by rats; it
penetrated to a great depth, but at its termination, instead of rats,
three Corncrakes were discovered, as if placed there with the greatest
care, not a feather being out of its place, and apparently lifeless. The
birds on examination were, however, considered to be in a torpid state,
and were placed near a fire in a warm room. In the course of a short
time a tremulous motion was observed in one of their legs, and soon
after a similar motion was noticed in the legs and wings of the whole,
which at length extended itself to their whole bodies, and finally the
birds were enabled to run and fly about the room."[118]
Daines Barrington, the correspondent of Gilbert White and of Pennant,
was a firm believer in the winter sleep of Swallows with us. He
mentions, on the authority of Lord Belhaven, that numbers of Swallows
had been found in old dry walls and in sandhills near his lordship's
seat in East-Lothian; not once only, _but from year to year_, and that
when they were exposed to the warmth, they revived. He says, however, he
cannot determine the particular species.[119]
The same naturalist mentions many other instances in which they have
been reported to be found, but he cannot give his personal voucher for
the truth of the statements.
"As first in a decayed hollow tree, that was cut down near Dolgelly, in
Merionethshire; secondly, in a cliff near Whitby, in Yorkshire, where,
in digging out a fox, whole bushels of Swallows were found in a torpid
condition; thirdly, the Rev. Mr Conway, of Lychton, Flintshire, a few
years ago, between All Saints' and Christmas, on looking down an old
lead mine in that county, observed numbers of Swallows clinging to the
timbers of the shaft, seemingly asleep, and on flinging some gravel on
them they just moved, but never attempted to fly or to change their
place."[120]
In some communications to the _Zoologist_ for 1845, by the late Mr F.
Holme, of Oxford, I find the following statement:--"On the hybernation
of this species (the House-swallow) I was told many years since, by old
Wall, then keeper of the Kildare Street Museum, in Dublin, ... that
after a heavy snow, in the winter of 1825-26, on going into the
_mansarde_ to see whether the snow had melted through, he found four
Chimney-swallows perched close together on a cross-beam, with their
heads under their wings; but on approaching his hand to them they flew
off, and escaped into the open air."[121]
Again, Mr J. B. Ellman of Battel, says, "There is a farmer named Waters,
residing at Catsfield, (adjoining parish,) who informs me he has
frequently (some years ago) dug Swallows out of banks in winter, while
widening the ditches in the brooks," &c.[122]
It is unfortunate that most of these and similar discoveries were "some
years ago;" and that, instead of increasing in frequency with the
increase of scientific research and communication, they strangely become
more rare. The same remark applies to the following statement: it is
minute enough, and circumstantially precise; but, unfortunately, it was
"fifteen years ago." The communicator is Edward Brown Fitton, Hastings,
under date September 8, 1849:--
"A labourer named William Joyce, who is now employed in excavating part
of the East Hill for the foundation of a house, told me yesterday, that,
in the month of December, about fifteen years ago, while he was working
for Mr William Ranger, who had the contract for cutting away the 'White
Rock,' which used to stand between this place and St Leonard's, the men
found an immense quantity of Swallows in a cleft of the rock. The birds
were clinging together in large 'clots,' and appeared to be dead, but
were not frozen together, the weather being rather warm for the season,
nor were they at all putrid or decayed. The men carried out at least
_three railway-barrows_ full of birds, which were buried with the mould
and rubbish from the cliff as it was wheeled away. Some people from the
town carried away a few of the birds to 'make experiments with,' but
Joyce never heard any more of them. He mentioned the names of four
persons now in Hastings, who were then his fellow-labourers, and says,
that forty or fifty of Mr Ranger's men were on the spot when the birds
were found, and can confirm what he says, both as to the finding and the
very great quantity of the birds. There are many crevices in the seaward
surface of the cliffs about here, which apparently penetrate the cliff
for several yards. The birds were found about ten feet from the surface
of the rock facing the sea, and not very high up."[123]
There is yet another class of facts to be adduced, which has an
important bearing on the subject. At first sight, these facts appear
less conclusive than the asserted discoveries of the birds, because less
direct; but I am inclined to attach more value to them, because they are
attested by so many and so unexceptionable witnesses. I mean the sight
of Swallows at large in these islands during the winter months. Let us
see some examples.
White of Selborne records several cases: thus, in 1773, twenty or thirty
House-martins were playing in the air all day on the 3d of
November,[124] after having disappeared from the 22d of October. In
1772, he saw three House-swallows gliding by on the sea-shore at
Newhaven, on the 4th of November.[125] On another occasion, (the year
not being recorded,) he saw, on a sunny morning, a House-martin flying,
at Oxford, on the 20th of November.[126] On the 26th of November 1768,
one of his neighbours saw a Martin hawking briskly after flies.[127] And
a very respectable gentleman assured him that on a remarkably hot day,
either in the last week in December or the first week in January, he
espied three or four Swallows in the moulding of a window of Merton
College, Oxford.[128]
Colonel Montagu remarks that "there are a variety of instances of the
Swallow and Martin having been seen flying in the months of November and
December, roused probably from a state of torpidity by an unusual warmth
of the air;"[129] and Captain H. W. Hadfield, commenting on this,
affirms that he has "more than once had ocular proof of their presence
during the winter months."[130] Yarrell gives examples of the late
appearance of the Swift. One was seen by Mr Blackwall on the 20th of
October 1815; a second in Perthshire on the 8th of November 1834; and a
third in Devonshire, by the Rev. Mr Cornish, on the 27th November
1835.[131] In considering these cases, it is needful to bear in mind
that the Swift migrates from this country annually from the 1st to the
15th of August.
Mr C. R. Bree mentions the following case, which I record, not because
it was particularly late, but because the state of the season, and some
other circumstances which he remarks on are interesting:--"On the 25th
of October 1848, some workmen being engaged on the roof of my house, I
was surprised by the appearance of three Swallows flying about the men.
I had not seen one since the beginning of the month. By the side of the
edge of the gable-end of the house the plaster was broken away, forming
a hole, which led under the roof. While watching the birds, which came
occasionally quite close to my face, I saw first one, then another,
alight upon the ledge of the gable-end, near the hole. Now, I thought, I
am to settle the question of hybernation: but I was disappointed. Though
I watched them for several hours--though I sent the workmen to another
part of the house, yet, although they frequently settled about the hole,
they never entered it. They were evidently young birds, and had been
disturbed. One of them rested upon the chimney, and appeared weak and
dull. I lost sight of them during the day; but the following morning,
the weather being warm, I saw several flying about high up in the air.
There is some mystery about these things. Why have these late
appearances been more remarked this year than other years? How did the
birds obtain food during the three weeks of bitter cold weather when
they were not seen in October?"[132]
On the 10th of December 1843, a specimen of the Swallow, _an adult bird,
not a young of the season_, (an important circumstance,) in full plumage
and good condition, was shot at Goole, in the West Riding, and was sent
to Mr R. J. Bell, of Derby, a good ornithologist,[133] who records the
fact. In 1852, that excellent naturalist, Mr Hewitson, of Oatlands, saw
two Chimney-swallows at Eshar on the 18th of November, and on the 21st
had four martins about his house.[134] In 1855, Mr E. Vernon Harcourt
reports the occurrence of several Martins skimming about at Uckfield on
the 23d of November; and on the 6th of December several Chimney-swallows
about the house at Hastings.[135] In the same season flocks of Martins
were hawking vigorously, in the vicinity of Penzance, to the 28th of
November, as witnessed by Mr E. H. Rodd.[136] Captain Hadfield again,
writing in 1856, gives extracts from his journals, whereby he records
having seen Swallows and Martins as late as November 3, 1841, December
2, 1842, November 13, 1852, November 22, 1853, November (about the
middle) 1854, and November 24 (Swallows) and December 2 (Martins) 1855.
Of the last-mentioned occurrence he gives the following interesting
note:--"Dec. 2, 4 P.M. Observed eight Martins flying round the garden,
and occasionally alighting on the perpendicular face of the wall of a
house near my garden gate, to which they would cling for a few seconds,
and then, dropping off, whirl round, returning to the same spot,
seemingly quite unconscious of my presence and that of several others:
they seemed bent on effecting an entrance under the eaves of the house,
by a small opening they had discovered near a water-pipe that had been
carried through the wall: they were, I believe, all young birds of the
season, as they appeared small, their tails being also shorter than in
the adults; they were weak on the wing, but that may have arisen from
their being benumbed by the cold, the thermometer standing at 44° only
at the above hour. There had been a bright sun during the greater part
of the day, but I had observed a white frost in the morning. I conclude
that these late birds were merely seeking a roosting-place for the
night, and not a place of concealment for the winter, although I might
have been excused, according to Cuvier, White, &c., had I thought they
were taking up their winter quarters; but I have not sufficient faith in
the theory to induce me to unslate a part of the roof to seek for them,
which might be done, however, at a trifling cost, provided permission
were obtained."[137]
It is rather a pity that the observer had not confidence enough to
induce him to make the investigation which he suggests.
Mr William Bree mentions as many as fifteen or twenty Martins and
Swallows sporting in the air near Temple Balsall on the 18th November
1846, adding that he has frequently seen individuals much later, but
never recollects to have seen so great a number together at that late
period. And, finally, Mr J. Johnston, jun., reports that he saw, in the
afternoon of 18th January 1837, three Swallows dipping and hawking as in
summer, near Wakefield.[138]
There is less evidence of the appearance of these birds before the
ordinary time of arrival of the migrants. But White, when a boy,
observed a Swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove
Tuesday, which day could not fall out later than the middle of March,
and often happened early in February.[139] And Mr Samuel Gurney, jun.,
together with several other persons, saw either a Martin or Swallow, on
the 27th of March 1844.[140]
If this last occurrence had stood alone, it would have been of slight
importance; for Yarrell mentions a single Swallow as having been seen by
a fisherman near the Eddystone as early as the 4th of April; and
Sand-martins, even as far north as Carlisle, before the end of March. It
is just possible that these may have been stragglers of the great army
of migrants, arriving some ten or fifteen days before their time; but
considering the whole great array of evidence, I rather believe that
these too were hybernants, who had been prematurely awakened from
torpidity by unusually warm days.
The accounts of _Hirundines_ having been found in a somnolent state in
winter may or may not be true; though the great number of such
statements in various and distant countries makes the indiscriminate
rejection of them even more difficult than the acceptance. But still
there remains the undeniable fact that it is quite an ordinary thing for
birds of this family, including all our four common species, to be seen
with us through November and December, and occasionally in
January;--that is, for two or three months after the great body of
migrants have left the country. No one, I suppose, pretends that
migration of Swallows takes place in December or January; therefore it
is manifest that a certain number--more or fewer--remain. What becomes
of them? We certainly see them only occasionally: where are they on the
days on which they do not appear,--days extending to several consecutive
weeks? If they had not been torpid during those weeks, if the more
active functions of life had not been suspended, would they not
certainly have been starved? But the specimen shot on the 10th December,
and examined by Mr Bell, was in good condition, which is consistent with
but one alternative; either it had been well fed throughout the
preceding six weeks, or it had been hybernating. But the former
supposition implies that it had been habitually on the wing during that
period, as Swallows feed only on the wing; which could not have been the
case without its being noticed and recorded.
It is common to say that these occasional winter Swallows are the later
broods of young, which, being too infantile to migrate, are compelled to
linger in the country of their nativity, and becoming lethargic from the
advancing cold, at length die before the spring. But when this
hypothesis is looked at, it seems hardly tenable. In many of the
instances recorded, the specimens seen even late into the winter, are
represented as gaily and vigorously hawking for flies, or sweeping over
the water as in summer. This does not look like poor deserted orphans
starved with the cold, retiring to die; but birds in health, temporarily
awakened from normal slumber by an unusual temperature, and instantly
ready for a full use of their faculties. However, to settle the point by
fact, Mr Bell distinctly states that his specimen of December 10th was
"an adult bird, _not_ a young bird of the season."
If it should be asked why they do not appear in January or February, as
well as November and December, the answer is obvious. The winter's
lethargy of hybernating warm-blooded vertebrates is much more readily
interrupted in the earlier part of the season than in the middle and
latter part. And this is natural; for the more intense cold of January
benumbs and suspends the vital functions far more completely, and the
_coma_ so superinduced is sufficiently deep to resist the counteracting
influence of a few warm days, even though the temperature should be as
high as on those earlier days that awakened them, or even higher.
The aggregate evidence, then, seems to leave no room for reasonable
doubt, that a certain number of our _Hirundinidæ_,--few, indeed, as
compared with the vast migrant population, but still considerable,
looked at _per se_,--for some reason or other, evade the task of a
southward flight, and remain, becoming torpid, occasionally betrayed
into a temporary activity, and resuming their active life, about the
same time, or occasionally a little _before_ the time, of the arrival of
their congeners from abroad. It is, however, desirable for the absolute
settlement of the question, that specimens, actually discovered in a
lethargic condition, should come under the observation of competent
scientific naturalists, _open to conviction_, who would leave them _in
situ_, keeping an eye on them from time to time till the return of warm
weather in spring. It is not enough to take them into a warm room, and
to shew that they revive in such circumstances: we want to know
positively whether they will be resuscitated normally and naturally by
the vernal warmth, and come forth spontaneously to sport, and wheel, and
skim, and soar, and stoop, and hawk, and twitter,--among their travelled
fellows. Who will undertake to decide the point in this manner? He will
have achieved a name in science.
[113] _Phys. Theol._, vii., Note _d_.
[114] _Règne Anim._, (Griffith's Ed.,) vii. 61.
[115] _Phil. Trans._, 1763.
[116] _Letter_ x.
[117] Stanley's _Fam. Hist. of Birds_, p. 263.
[118] _Edin. Journ._, viii.
[119] In Pennant's _Brit. Zool._
[120] _Brit. Zool._, App.
[121] _Zool._, 1136.
[122] Ibid., 2302.
[123] _Zool._, 2590.
[124] _Letter_ xxxviii.
[125] Ibid. xii.
[126] Ibid. xi.
[127] Ibid. xxxi.
[128] _Letter_ xxiii.
[129] _Orn. Dict._, Introd., xxvii.
[130] _Zool._, 5364.
[131] _Brit. Birds_, ii. 264.
[132] _Zool._, 2455.
[133] Ibid., 565.
[134] Ibid., 3753.
[135] _Zool._, 4945.
[136] Ibid., 4945.
[137] _Zool._, 4995.
[138] Ibid. 1639.
[139] _Letter_ xviii., 2d ser.
[140] _Zool._, 565.
VI.
THE CRESTED AND WATTLED SNAKE.
About the middle of the last century there existed in Amsterdam a Museum
of natural history, which, though accumulated by the zeal and industry
of a private individual, far exceeded in extent and magnificence any
collection then in the world. It had been gathered by Albert Seba, a
wealthy apothecary in the Dutch East India Company's service, who
fortunately published an elaborate description of its contents. This
great work, "_Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri accurata
Descriptio_,"--in four volumes folio, published from 1734 to 1765,--is
even now remarkable for the accuracy and beauty of its copious
engravings, which still are referred to as authorities, though the
descriptions are devoid of scientific value. Many of these figures and
descriptions, about whose reality no shadow of doubt exists, are those
of creatures which are altogether unknown to modern science, and some of
them are highly curious.
Serpents seem to have been a special hobby of Seba's; and he has
delineated a vast number of species. Among them are two[141] about which
a singular interest hangs. They are of rather small size; the one pale
yellow, marked with oval reddish spots, the other reddish, with five
green transverse bands. The head in each case has a horny-pointed
muzzle, and the cheeks are furnished with depending wattles of a
coral-red hue.
From the expressions of wonder with which Seba introduces his
descriptions of these animals, it is evident that they were no ordinary
forms. He does not know whether to call them Eels or Serpents, the
critical characters, which in our day would instantly determine this
point, being then scarcely heeded. He calls them "marine," but whether
on any other evidence than the pendent processes of the cheeks, which he
calls "fins," does not appear. But no fish known to naturalists will
answer to these representations. The pointed head, indeed, resembles in
some respects that of _Mur{oe}na_, but this genus of fishes is altogether
destitute of pectoral fins, while the vertically-flattened tail, and the
long dorsal and anal fins confluent around the extremity of the body in
_Mur{oe}na_, are totally unlike these figures. These and all similar fishes
are, moreover, destitute of visible scales; but in these the scaling is
decidedly serpentine, and the second, in particular, has large
symmetrical plates across the belly, while the head in both is shielded
with broad plates like a Colubrine Snake. The tail is drawn out to a
long conical point, without the slightest appearance of compression or
of bordering fins. In one figure there is seen a little projecting point
at the edge of the lower belly, which at first sight suggests the idea
of the anal hook of a _Boa_, but which, by comparison with other
figures, we discover to be intended to represent the projection of the
pre-anal scale. The very minuteness of this character makes it valuable:
its value was doubtless unheeded by the artist, who merely drew what he
saw; it is, however, a very decisive mark of distinction between a
serpent and a fish.
Seba records that he had received these Serpents from the Island of St
Domingo. This was at that time a flourishing French colony, and its
natural productions were far better known to Europe than they now are.
When I visited the neighbouring island of Jamaica in 1845-46, I heard
accounts of a wonderful animal occasionally seen in the eastern
districts of the island, which was reported as a Snake with a cock's
comb and wattles, and which crowed like a cock. A good deal of mystery
attached to this strange Serpent.
It was appropriated to a very remarkable and peculiar character of
scenery:--A wild mountain-region, formed of white limestone, abounding
in narrow glens, bounded by abrupt precipices, and permeated by
whispering streams that frequently pour in slender cascades over the
rocks. The limestone rock rises in abrupt terraces, wall above wall, and
its entire surface is most singularly honeycombed, "as if wrought by a
graving tool into rough diamond-points," alternating with smooth and
rounded holes of various sizes, from that of a hazel-nut upward. In many
of these hollows lie the small land-shells of the country, bleached
perfectly white, like the stone itself, of the genera _Helix_,
_Cyclostoma_, _Helicina_, _Cylindrella_, _Achatina_, &c., many of them
perfect, but many more in fragments. They exactly resemble fossil shells
_in situ_, but the species are absolutely identical with those that
crawl over the shrubs and trees in the same region. In very many cases
the dead shells accurately fit the hollows in the rock, whose interior
is impressed with the form and sculpturing of the shell in
_intaglio_:--a most curious and interesting fact, as it points to the
very recent formation of the region, the stone bearing evident tokens of
having been in a plastic condition when the shells were enveloped in it.
Out of the hollows of the rock, their roots fast grasping the
sharp-edged projections and tooth-like points of stone, and twining
through the tortuous cavities, and insinuating their fibrils into every
minute hollow where water may lodge, grow many tall trees of various
kinds, interlaced with climbers, and hung with festoons of _lianes_,
that resemble long and twisted cords, thrown from one to another, or
depending from the branches towards the ground. The noble Agave, or what
we in England call the American Aloe, here throws out its broad, fleshy,
spine-edged leaves, and lifts its tall flower-stalk loaded with the
candelabra-like branches of bloom; and numerous thick _Cacti_, some
erect and massive, others whip-like, long and trailing, give a peculiar
aspect to the vegetation. Great tufts of _Orchide{oe}_,--the lovely
_Broughtonia_, with its thick ovate leaves, and racemes of elegant
crimson flowers, the _Brasavola_, with long leaves resembling
porcupine-quills in form, and blossoms of virgin white, the _Oncidium_,
with its yellow and red flowers, like a score of painted butterflies
dancing in every breath, and many others,--crowd the forks or droop from
the twisted boughs of the trees.
This formation of honeycombed limestone is full of caverns, many of
which lead into one another in chains, and which have invested the
region with a sort of superstitious mystery. Runaway slaves and outlaws
have availed themselves of the facilities which its ravines and
inaccessible fastnesses afford, to defy capture; and during the
rebellion of the Maroons, it attained a considerable notoriety. There is
one estate about eight miles from Kingston, in the immediate vicinity of
which the famous hero, Three-fingered Jack, made his head-quarters. It
is a district of wild torrents and waterfalls of the most romantic
character; "the imagination of no painter of theatrical spectacles can
surpass the wild wonders of the mountain-hold of the _real_
Three-fingered Jack. Part of the road by which you ascend the falls is a
subterranean passage; and caverns are entered by simple crevices which
seem mere chinks in the irregular surface of the rock, all which natural
peculiarities account for the mysterious disappearances which the
mountain hero was enabled to enact from his pursuers."
It was at this spot I first heard reliable tidings of the strange
Crested Snake. A medical gentleman of reputation informed me that he had
seen, in 1829, a serpent of about four feet in length, but of unwonted
thickness, dull ochry in colour with well-defined dark spots, having on
its head a sort of pyramidal helmet, somewhat lobed at the summit, of a
pale red hue. The animal, however, was dead, and decomposition was
already setting in. He informed me that the negroes of the district were
well acquainted with it; and that they represented it as making a noise,
not unlike the crowing of a cock, and as being addicted to preying on
poultry.
Nor is it in Jamaica alone that the Crested Snake is known. In the
island of St Domingo, whence Seba received his curious specimens, my
friend Mr Hill heard reports of it. A Spanish gentleman whom he was
visiting in Hayti, told him that he had seen it, and begged him to note
it among the remarkable things of the country. It was in that far east
of the island, known as the ancient Caciquedom of Higuey, where the
Indians were of a more warlike disposition than their meek brethren of
the centre and west, and where the cruelties perpetrated upon them by
their Spanish invaders reached such a superhuman pitch of diabolism,
that even Las Casas says he almost feared to repeat them. The limestone
mountains are here of exactly the same description as those in Jamaica,
and the scenery assumes exactly the same romantic character. My friend's
Spanish informant had seen the serpent with mandibles like a bird, with
a cock's crest, with scarlet lobes or wattles; and he described its
habits,--perhaps rather from common fame than from personal
observation,--as a frequenter of hen-roosts, into which it would thrust
its head, and deceive the young chickens by its imitative physiognomy,
and by its attempts to crow, like their own Chanticleer. "Il canta como
un Gallo;" was the report in Hayti, just as in Jamaica.
I was much interested in this mysterious reptile, and mentioned in the
public papers my wish to possess a specimen. A gentleman of the
vicinity, Mr Jasper Cargill, was so desirous to oblige me that he
offered a sovereign for one; but though several persons were prompt to
promise the capture, no example was forthcoming.
After my return from Jamaica, the occurrence of two specimens found came
under the notice of my friend, but neither of them was preserved. Mr
Cargill had informed him that some years before, when visiting Skibo, in
St George's, an estate of his father's, in descending the mountain-road,
his attention was drawn to a snake of a dark hue, that erected itself
from amid some fragments of limestone-rock that lay about. It was about
_four feet long_, and unusually _thick-bodied_. His surprise was greatly
increased on perceiving that it was _crested_, and that from the side of
the cheeks depended some _red-coloured flaps_, like gills or wattles.
After gazing at him intently some time, with its head well erect, it
drew itself in, and disappeared among the fragmentary rocks.
The son of this gentleman met with another specimen under the following
circumstances, as detailed to me by my friend:--"It was, I think, on
Easter Eve, the 30th of March last, [1850,] that some youngsters of the
town came running to tell me of a curious snake, unlike any snake they
had ever seen before, which young Cargill had shot, when out for a day's
sport among the woodlands of a neighbouring penn. They described it as
in all respects a serpent, but with a very curious shaped head, and with
wattles on each side of its jaws. After taking it in hand and looking at
it, they placed it in a hollow tree, intending to return for it when
they should be coming home, but they had strolled from the place so far
that it was inconvenient to retrace their steps when wearied with
rambling; but they had lost no time in relating the adventure to me,
knowing it would interest me much, particularly as young Cargill's
father had thought it a snake similar to the one he had seen at Skibo,
in St George's, or to the crested serpent for a specimen of which, when
in St Thomas's in the East, he had offered the sum of twenty shillings.
The youth that shot the snake fell ill on the following morning with
fever, and could not go back to the woodlands to seek it, but he sent
his younger brother who had been with him; but although he thought he
rediscovered the tree in which his brother had placed it, he could not
find the snake. He conjectured that the rats had devoured it in the
night. When this adventure was related to me, another youth, Ulick
Ramsay, a godson of mine, who came with the young Cargills to tell me of
their discovery, informed me that not long previously, he had seen in
the hand of the barrack-master-serjeant at the barracks in Spanish Town,
a curious snake, which he, too, had shot among the rocks of a little
line of eminences near the railway, about two miles out, called
Craigallechie. It was a serpent with a curious shaped head, and
projections on each side, which he likened to the fins of an eel, but
said they were close up to the jaws. Here are, unquestionably, two of
the same snakes with those of Seba's Thesaurus, taken near Spanish Town,
and both about the honeycombed rocks that protrude through the plain of
St Catherine's in detached ridges and cones and hummocks, being points
of the greater lines of limestone, which have been covered by the
detritus of the plains, leaving masses of the under-rocks here and there
uncovered. These are the spots frequented, too, by the _Cyclura_; and
are continuations of our Red Hills--a country that so much resembles the
terraced cliffs and red-soil glens of Higuey.
It is remarkable that I have heard nothing more of this serpent of
renown, this true Basilisk, from that time till now; though I have no
doubt my Jamaica friends, who had become much interested in the matter,
would have communicated the specimen to me if any one had been obtained.
There is, however, sufficient evidence to assume the existence of such a
form in the greater Antilles, whether Seba's figures be identical with
it or not.
[141] _Op. cit._; vol. ii. pl. 40.
VII.
THE DOUBTFUL.
A very curious and unaccountable habit is attributed to some Reptiles,
which, though asserted by many witnesses, at different times and in
distant countries, has not yet received the general assent of men of
science. White of Selborne, in one of his charming letters to Pennant,
has the following note:--"Several intelligent folks assure me that they
have seen the Viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her
throat on sudden surprises, just as the female Opossum does her brood
into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies. Yet the
London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr Barrington, that no such thing
ever happens."[142]
The evidence of the London viper-catchers goes for no more than it is
worth; those whom Mr Barrington applied to,--how many and of what
experience I know not,--had not met with such a case. But negative
evidence is of little weight against positive. At the same time, others
of the same fraternity affirm the fact. There is, as Mr Martin observes,
no physiological reason against the possibility of the young maintaining
life for a brief period within the stomach of the parent. A swallowed
frog has been heard, by Mr Bell, to cry several minutes after it had
been swallowed by a snake; and the same excellent authority has seen
another frog leap out of the mouth of a snake which had swallowed it,
taking advantage of the fact that the latter gaped, as they frequently
do, immediately after taking food.
Mr Martin says he has conversed with several who had been assured by
gamekeepers and gardeners that the swallowing of the young by vipers had
been witnessed by them.[143] And Mr Blyth, a zoologist of established
reputation, observes,--"I have been informed of this by so many credible
eye-witnesses, that I cannot hesitate in yielding implicit credence to
the fact. One man particularly, on whose word I fully rely, tells me
that he has himself seen as many as thirteen young vipers thus enter the
mouth of the parent, which he afterwards killed and opened for the
purpose of counting them."[144]
Mr E. Percival, writing to the _Zoologist_, under date "64
Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, Oct. 17, 1848," narrates the following
facts:--"When in Scotland, last autumn, I saw what at the time satisfied
me that vipers really possessed this faculty, though the evidence was
scarcely as conclusive as might have been wished. Walking along a sunny
road, I saw a viper lying on the parapet. She had apparently just been
killed by a blow from a stick. Five or six young ones, about four inches
long, were wriggling about their murdered parent, and one was making its
way out of her mouth, at the time when I approached. Whether this was
the first time the young ones had seen the light, or whether they were
only leaving a place of temporary refuge, I leave to more experienced
observers than myself to determine."[145]
This communication brought out the following from the late Mr John
Wolley:--"Mr Percival's interesting note (_Zool._, 2305) on this subject
reminds me of a very similar anecdote, told me several years ago by a
gentleman who is an accurate observer, and who has had long experience
in all kinds of sports. He one day shot a viper, and almost immediately
afterwards it was surrounded by young ones, in what appeared to him the
most mysterious manner. But here the grand link was wanting which Mr
Percival has supplied,--the young ones were not seen to come out of
their mother's mouth. I may be allowed to mention an anecdote, told me
in 1842, by an illiterate shepherd of Hougham, near Dover: he met me
catching vipers, and, on my entering into conversation with him, he
volunteered--without any allusion of mine--to tell this curious story.
One day his father came suddenly upon a viper surrounded by her young,
she opened her mouth and they all ran down her throat; he killed her,
and leaving her on the ground, propped her mouth open between two pieces
of stick; presently the young ones crawled out: on the slightest alarm
they retreated back again,--and this they did repeatedly for several
days, during which time many people came to see it.[146] The young which
White of Selborne cut out of the old female, and which immediately
threw themselves into attitudes of defiance, had probably not then seen
the daylight for the first time. Mr Bell, in a note in Bennett's edition
of White's 'Selborne,' mentions the wide-spread belief in this alleged
habit of the viper; but appears to consider the fact not proved.
Accounts of similar habits in foreign viviparous snakes, common report,
and, above all, Mr Percival's observation, leave no doubt on my mind
about the matter."
The most recent case on record that I have met with, is the following,
communicated to the _Zoologist_[147] for last December, by the Rev.
Henry Bond, of South Petherton:--
"Walking in an orchard near Tyneham House, in Dorsetshire, I came upon
an old adder basking in the sun, with her young around her; she was
lying on some grass that had been long cut, and had become smooth and
bleached by exposure to the weather. Alarmed by my approach, I
distinctly saw the young ones run down their mother's throat. At that
time I had never heard of the controversy respecting the fact, otherwise
I should have been more anxious to have killed the adder, to prove the
case. As it was, she escaped while I was more interested in the
circumstance I witnessed than in her destruction."
Exactly the same thing is told of the North American Rattlesnake. Hunter
says, that when alarmed, the young ones, which are eight or ten in
number, retreat into the mouth of the parent, and reappear on its
giving a contractile muscular token that the danger is past.[148]
M. Palisot de Beauvois asserts that he saw a large rattlesnake which he
had disturbed in his walks immediately coil itself up and open its jaws,
when in an instant five small ones that were lying by it rushed into its
open mouth. He concealed himself, and watched the snake, and in a
quarter of an hour saw her discharge them. He then approached a second
time, when the young ones rushed into the parent's mouth more quickly
than before, and the animal immediately moved off, and escaped. The
phenomenon is said to have been observed in regard to some of the
venomous snakes of India, but I cannot now refer to details.
Confirmation of a reported fact is sometimes derived from collateral
evidence, and such is not wanting in the present case. The phenomenon is
not confined to serpents; it has been observed in their near relatives,
the lizards. Mr Edward Newman, while guarding the subject with a
philosophical caveat, furnishes his readers with the following highly
interesting and germane statement:--"1st, My late lamented friend,
William Christy, jun., found a fine specimen of the common scaly lizard
with two young ones. Taking an interest in everything relating to
Natural History, he put them into a small pocket vasculum to bring home;
but when he next opened the vasculum the young ones had disappeared, and
the belly of the parent was greatly distended; he concluded she had
devoured her own offspring; at night the vasculum was laid on a table,
and the lizard was therefore at rest: in the morning the young ones had
reappeared, and the mother was as lean as at first. 2d, Mr Henry
Doubleday, of Epping, supplies the following information:--A person
whose name is English, a good observer, and one, as it were, brought up
in Natural History, under Mr Doubleday's tuition, once happened to set
his foot on a lizard in the forest, and while the lizard was thus held
down by his foot, he distinctly saw three young ones run out of her
mouth. Struck by such a phenomenon, he killed and opened the old one,
and found two other young ones in her stomach, which had been injured
when he trod upon her. In both these instances the narrators are of that
class who do know what to observe, and how to observe it; and the facts,
whatever explanation they may admit, are not to be dismissed as the
result of imagination or mistaken observation."[149]
It is remarkable that all the serpents to which the phenomenon is
attributed are ovo-viviparous. Our common lizard, to which the facts
just narrated doubtless belong (_Zootoca vivipara_), has the same
property, which, however, appears to be by no means common among the
Saurian races. This coincidence, while it would afford a handle to the
deniers of the stated facts, in the assumption that the emergence of the
living young from the abdomen, or their presence within it, has given
rise to the notion--may have an essential significance and connexion
with the phenomenon itself, on the hypothesis of its truth. That
endowment, whatever it be, which enables the young to live and breathe
in the abdominal cavity of the mother before birth, may render it easier
for them than for others not so endowed to survive a temporary
incarceration within the stomach after birth. Mr Newman does not know
how to believe that a young and tender animal can remain in the strongly
digestive stomach of a viper and receive no injury; but he has forgotten
to take into the account the well-ascertained power that living tissues
have the power of resisting the action of chemical re-agents that would
instantly take effect upon them when dead. The walls of the stomach
itself are not corroded by the gastric-juice which is rapidly dissolving
the piece of meat within it. If the young animals can do without air for
a while in their snug retreat, I do not think they would need fear the
digestive operation. Air, I should suppose, _must_ be excluded from the
stomach, unless the parent have the power of swallowing air voluntarily,
for the emergency; but perhaps a cold-blooded animal like a reptile,
with a sluggish circulation and respiration, might do with very much
less fresh air than a mammal under similar conditions.
The proposed _rationale_ of those who reject these statements,--that
female vipers in the last stage of pregnancy have been opened, and have
given freedom to living and active young, and that careless and
unscientific observers have leaped to the conclusion that their young
must have entered by the mouth,--will not stand before the testimony
distinctly given by witnesses, who have actually seen the young retreat
into the mouth, and have then found them within the body. No doubt the
subject needs further investigation by careful and unprejudiced
naturalists; but the positive evidence already adduced on the testimony
of so many deponents, warrants our accepting the phenomenon as a normal
habit of certain species of Saurians and Ophidians, though it may be
somewhat rarely resorted to, and that whatever physical difficulties may
seem to stand in the way of its _à priori_ probability--difficulties
which perhaps depend on our ignorance, and which will disappear before
the light of advancing knowledge.
* * * * *
The entomologists have fallen most ungallantly foul of Madame Merian, a
lady who resided in Surinam nearly two hundred years ago, and devoted
her attention to the native entomology, painting insects in a very
admirable manner. She is set down as a thorough heretic, not at all to
be believed, a manufacturer of unsound natural history, an inventor of
false facts in science.
Among other things, she speaks of a large hemipterous fly, which has in
consequence of her reports been named _Fulgora lanternaria_. This insect
has the head produced into a large inflated proboscis more than an inch
in length, which is said to carry an intense luminosity within its
transparent walls, as a candle is carried within a lantern. The fair
observer says that the first discovery which she made of this property
caused her no small alarm. The Indians had brought her several of these
insects, which by daylight exhibited no extraordinary appearance, and
she enclosed them in a box until she should have an opportunity of
drawing them, placing it upon a table in her lodging-room. In the middle
of the night the confined insects made such a noise as to awake her, and
she opened the box, the inside of which, to her great astonishment,
appeared all in a blaze; and in her fright letting it fall, she was not
less surprised to see each of the insects apparently on fire. She soon,
however, divined the cause of this unexpected phenomenon, and
re-enclosed her brilliant guests in their place of confinement. She adds
that the light of one of these Fulgoræ is sufficiently bright to read a
newspaper by: and though the tale of her having drawn one of these
insects by its own light is without foundation, she doubtless might have
done so if she had chosen.
This circumstantial and apparently truthful statement has brought no
small odium on the fair narrator. Other naturalists who have had
opportunities of seeing the insect in its native regions strongly deny
its luminosity. The inhabitants of Cayenne, according to the French
Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, aver that it does not shine at all;
and this is confirmed by M. Richard, a naturalist, who reared the
species. The learned and accurate Count Hoffmansegg states that his
insect collector Herr Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years'
experience, who during a sojourn of several years in Brazil took many
specimens of the _Fulgora lanternaria_, never saw a single one which was
in the slightest degree luminous. There is a kindred species in China,
_F. candelaria_, very common in those glazed boxes of insects which the
Chinese sell to mariners; this also has been supposed to emit light, but
Dr Cantor assures us that he has never observed the least luminosity in
this species.
Thus it would seem that the obloquy which has fallen upon the ingenious
lady is not altogether undeserved, and that for the sake of a telling
story, she has been indeed "telling a story." But we may imagine her
offended ghost looking round and saying, "All these gentlemen merely say
they have _not_ seen the light; now I say I have: is there no one who
will verify my statement?"
M. Lacordaire,--an authority on South American insects second to none,
says that he himself indeed never saw a luminous _Fulgora_ all the time
he was collecting in Brazil and Cayenne, and that most of the
inhabitants of the latter country, when questioned on the subject,
denied the fact, yet _that others of the natives as distinctly affirmed
that it is luminous_. He asks whether it is not possible that the light
may be confined to one sex, and thus the conflicting testimony be
reconciled; and gives it as his opinion that the point is rather one
which requires more careful observation, than one which we can consider
absolutely decided.[150]
Again, the Marquis Spinola, in an elaborate paper on this tribe,
published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France,[151]
strenuously contends that the remarkable development of the frontal
portion of the head in the whole race is luminous. And finally, a friend
of Mr Wesmael assured him that he had himself seen the American
_Fulgora_ luminous while alive.[152]
It may help to sustain our faith in the veracity of Madame Merian, to
know that there is some reason for attributing occasional luminosity to
well-known English insects, of which hundreds, and even thousands, have
been taken without manifesting a trace of the phenomenon. Mr Spence, in
his interesting Letter on Luminous Insects,[153] adduces the following
evidence:--Insects "may be luminous which have not hitherto been
suspected of being so. This seems proved by the following fact: A
learned friend has informed me, that when he was curate of Ickleton,
Cambridgeshire, in 1780, a farmer of that place, of the name of
Simpringham, brought to him a mole-cricket (_Gryllotalpa vulgaris_,
Latr.), and told him that one of his people seeing a _Jack-o'-lantern_,
pursued it, and knocked it down, when it proved to be this insect, and
the identical specimen shewn to him.
"This singular fact, while it renders it probable that some insects are
luminous which no one has imagined to be so, seems to afford a clue to
the, at least, partial explanation of the very obscure subject of _ignes
fatui_, and to shew that there is considerable ground for the opinion
long ago maintained by Ray and Willughby, that the majority of these
supposed meteors are no other than luminous insects. That the large
varying lambent flames mentioned by Beccaria to be very common in some
parts of Italy, and the luminous globes seen by Dr Shaw cannot be thus
explained, is obvious. These were probably electrical phenomena;
certainly not explosions of phosphuretted hydrogen, as has been
suggested by some, which must necessarily have been momentary. But that
the _ignis fatuus_ mentioned by Derham as having been seen by himself,
and which he describes as flitting about a thistle, was, though he seems
of a different opinion, no other than some luminous insect, I have
little doubt. Mr Sheppard informs me that, travelling one night between
Stamford and Grantham on the top of the stage, he observed for more than
ten minutes a very large _ignis fatuus_ in the low marshy grounds, which
had every appearance of being an insect. The wind was very high:
consequently, had it been a vapour it must have been carried forward in
a direct line; but this was not the case. It had the same motion as a
_Tipula_, flying upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards,
sometimes appearing as settled, and sometimes as hovering in the air.
Whatever be the true nature of these meteors, of which so much is said
and so little known, it is singular how few modern instances of their
having been observed are on record. Dr Darwin declares, that though in
the course of a long life he had been out in the night, and in the
places where they are said to appear, times without number, he had never
seen anything of the kind; and from the silence of other philosophers of
our own times, it should seem that their experience is similar."
A paper by Mr R Chambers on the subject adduces the additional
testimony of facts observed by good naturalists, as Dickson and
Curtis the eminent botanists, and Stothard the painter and entomologist,
by his own father Mr A. Chambers, and by Joseph Simpson, a fisherman
living near Boston, all of which strongly corroborate the probability
that some, at least, of the _ignes fatui_ are produced by luminous
insects.[154] Mr Main narrates the case of a farmer who stated
that he had pursued a Will-o'-the-wisp, and coming up with it had
knocked it down, when it proved to be an insect "exactly like a
Maggy-long-legs"--that is, the common Crane-fly (_Tipula oleracea_), the
very insect with which Mr Sheppard had compared the motions of the
luminous flame observed by him.[155] Mr Spence argues that while gaseous
emanations may be a cause of stationary _ignes fatui_, the same cause
will not explain those which flit along from place to place; and that
these are probably luminous insects, however rarely they may have come
under the notice of entomologists. "A very strong argument for the
possibility of some flying insects being occasionally luminous (in
England) is afforded by the facts ... of luminous caterpillars having
been within these few years observed for the first time since entomology
has been attended to, and that by observers every way competent. If
caterpillars so very common as those of _Mamestra oleracea_ may
sometimes, though so rarely, be luminous, and if, as Dr Boisduval
suggests, and is very probable, this appearance was caused by disease,
it is obvious that flying insects may be also occasionally (though
seldom) luminous from disease--a supposition which will at once explain
the rarity of the occurrence, and the circumstance that insects of such
different genera, and even orders, are said to have exhibited this
phenomenon."[156]
These highly curious facts should make observers cautious in strongly
denying statements made by others of phenomena, when they themselves
have not been so fortunate as to witness them, even though they may
think their opportunities to have been as favourable as those of the
_soi-disant_ observer.[157]
But we have not yet dismissed Madame Merian. If acquitted of falsehood
here, she stands arraigned on a second charge of similar character.
In most tropical countries there are found hideous hairy spiders of
monstrous size and most repulsive appearance; short-legged, sombre-hued,
ferocious marauders of the night, that by day lurk in obscure retreats
under stones, or in burrows in the earth.
Guiana produces a formidable species of this sort (_Mygale avicularia_),
which measures three inches in length, and whose feet--though the genus
is, as I have said, comparatively short-limbed--cover an area some
eight or ten inches in diameter. Madame Merian has exquisitely figured
the tragical end of a tiny humming-bird, surprised by one of these
monsters on her eggs; the petite bird overthrown under the fangs of the
sprawling spider, one of whose feet is in the nest. It was on the
authority of this lady that Linnæus gave the name of _avicularia_ to the
species. Later naturalists have scouted the whole story. Mr MacLeay, who
resided in Cuba, says that there are indeed there huge spiders, allied
to our garden spider, which make a geometric net, strong enough to
embarrass small birds; but that these do not attempt to catch such prey,
and never molest birds at all. On the other hand, he avers that the
Cuban _Mygale_, an allied species to that of Guiana, makes no web, and
has no power of injuring birds. He put this to the test of experiment;
for having maimed a humming-bird, he thrust it into the _Mygale's_ hole,
which, instead of seizing the victim, retreated as in fear out of his
den. This Mr MacLeay supposes to be conclusive; but a moment's
reflection will shew how equivocal is the evidence. The spider may not
have been hungry; or he may have been taken aback by the sudden
intrusion; or he might not choose to take prey that he had not stolen
upon and slaughtered _suo more_; or he may have muttered in the
Arachnidan language,--
"Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes."
Because a wolf will cower down in the corner of his lair (even a tiger
has been known to do so)--when a man suddenly enters his presence, and
will manifest the most abject fear, would it be philosophical to
ridicule the tales told of wolves pursuing and devouring men by night?
M. Langsdorff asked the people of Brazil if the Caranquexeira, or the
great _Mygale_ of that country, fed upon humming-birds, when they
answered him, with bursts of laughter, that it only gratified its maw
with large flies, ants, bees, wasps, beetles, &c.; an answer which the
traveller verified by his own personal experience.[158] If M. Langsdorff
means, which of course he does, that he learned by personal observation
that the spider _ordinarily_ feeds on insects, that fact is indubitable,
and never has been doubted; but if he means that he had experience that
it eats _only_ such prey, which is the question at issue, it is plain
that this experience proves no more than that he never witnessed such a
fact.
Percival, in his account of Ceylon, observes:--"There is an immense
spider here, with legs not less than four inches long, and having the
body covered with thick black hair." This was doubtless the _Mygale_ of
the island. "The webs which it makes are strong enough to entangle and
hold even small birds, which form its usual prey." Alluding to this
statement, Sir Emerson Tennent says:--
"As to the stories told of the _Mygale_ catching and killing birds, I am
satisfied, both from inquiry and observation, that, at least in Ceylon,
they are destitute of truth, and that (unless in the possible case of
acute suffering from hunger) this creature shuns all description of food
except soft insects and annelides." And yet he immediately adds:--"A
lady at Marandan, near Colombo, told me that she had, on one occasion,
seen a little house-lizard (_gecko_) seized and devoured by one of these
ugly spiders."[159] Does he not, then, credit his informant? Or are
lizards included in the category of "soft insects and annelides?"
Against this incredulity, resting on no better than negative evidence,
one might adduce collateral proof from analogy. There _are_ spiders
which feed on vertebrate animals, and there _are_ spiders whose webs
catch birds. The large and beautiful _Nephila claripes_ of tropical
America weaves strong threads of yellow silk in the paths of the woods,
converging to a web quite strong enough to arrest a bird of weak flight.
It must have been a species allied to this, but certainly, I think, not
the same, of which Dr Walsh speaks in his "Travels in Brazil." "Among
the insects is an enormous spider, which I did not observe elsewhere. In
passing through an opening between some trees, I felt my head entangled
in some obstructions, and on withdrawing it, my straw hat remained
behind. When I looked up I saw it suspended in the air, entangled in the
meshes of an immense cobweb, which was drawn like a veil of thick gauze
across the opening, and was expanded from branch to branch of the
opposite trees as large as a sheet ten or twelve feet in diameter. The
whole of this space was covered with spiders of the same species but
different sizes; some of them, when their legs were expanded, forming a
circle of six or seven inches in circumference.[160] They were
particularly distinguished by bright spots. The cords composing the web
were of a glossy yellow, like the fibres of silkworms, and equally
strong."
There is a creature found in the tropical parts of both hemispheres,
called _Solpuga_, which though not exactly a spider, is yet so closely
allied to that family as to be in some measure responsible for its
misdoings. It is about as large as the _Mygale_, and, with sufficient
general resemblance to it to warrant its being popularly considered a
spider, it has much the same habits and appetites. Captain Hutton, in a
most interesting memoir, describes the details of an Indian species
under the name of _Galeodes vorax_. Among many other details, he
says--"This species is extremely voracious, feeding at night upon
beetles, flies, and even large lizards; and sometimes gorging itself to
such a degree as to render it almost unable to move. A lizard, three
inches long, _exclusive of tail_, was entirely devoured; the spider
sprung at it, and made a seizure immediately behind the shoulder, never
quitting its hold until the whole was consumed. The poor lizard
struggled violently at first, rolling over and over in its agony, but
the spider kept firm hold, and gradually sawed away with its double jaws
into the very entrails of the victim. The only parts uneaten were the
jaws and part of the skin, although the lizard was at least five inches
long from nose to extremity of tail. After this meal, the spider
remained gorged and motionless for about a fortnight, being much
swollen and distended.
"A young sparrow, about half grown, was placed under a bell-glass with a
_Galeodes_; the moment the luckless bird moved, the spider seized him by
the thigh, which he speedily sawed off, in spite of the sparrow's
fluttering; and then as the poor bird continued to struggle in pain, the
savage seized him by the throat, and soon put an end to his sufferings
by cutting off the head. It did not, however, devour the bird, nor any
part of it, but seemed satisfied with having killed it.
"On another occasion, I gave it a large garden-lizard, which was
instantly seized by the middle of the body; the lizard, finding that it
could not shake off its adversary, turned its head, and bit the
_Galeodes_ on the leg, which obliged it immediately to quit its hold and
retreat.
"On another occasion my friend, Dr Baddeley, confined one of these
spiders in a wall-shade with two young musk rats (_Sorex Indicus_), both
of which were killed by it."[161]
In an expedition to the Kurruckpoor Hills, south of Monghyr, Captain
Sherwill found upon the summit of Maruk, a table-topped hill of 1100
feet elevation, several of the gigantic webs of the Epeira spider, some
of which measured (including the guy-ropes) from ten to twelve feet in
diameter, the reticulated portion being about five feet, in the centre
of which the spider, of a formidable size and very active, sits waiting
for prey. "The webs," he says, "from their great strength, offered a
sensible resistance when forcing our way through them. In the web of
one of the spiders we found a bird entangled, and the young spiders,
about eight in number, feeding upon the carcase. The bird was, with the
exception of its legs and beak, entirely enveloped in the web, and was
much decomposed; the entwined web had completely pinioned the wings of
the bird, so as to render its escape impossible. The bird was about the
size of a field-lark, and was near the centre of the web; the old spider
was about a foot above the bird: we secured, measured, and bottled him.
Its dimensions were six inches across the legs, and it was armed with a
formidable pair of mandibles."[162]
It is clear, then, that there is nothing absurd or contrary to
probability in the statement that spiders attack, overcome, and devour
birds. But Madame Merian is here again favoured with direct witnesses to
sustain her good faith. M. Moreau de Jonnès expressly mentions, on his
own authority, that the South American Mygale climbs the branches of
trees to devour the young of humming-birds. But the most satisfactory
statement is made by Mr H. W. Bates, who has recently returned from the
interior of Brazil after many years spent in studying the entomology of
that vast region. No one will deny his competency as a witness. "Now I
will relate to you," he says, "what I saw in the month of June 1849, in
the neighbourhood of Cameta. I was attracted by a curious movement of
the large gray-brown Mygale on the trunk of a vast tree: it was close
beneath a deep crevice or chink in the tree, across which this species
weaves a dense web, open for its exit and entrance at one end. In the
present instance the lower part of the web was broken, and two pretty
small finches were entangled in its folds; the finch was about the size
of the common siskin of Europe, and I judged the two to be male and
female; one of them was quite dead, but secured in the broken web; the
other was under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was covered
in parts with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the monster. I was
on my return from a day's excursion by land at the time, with my boxes
full of valuable and delicate insects, and six miles from my house, and
therefore could not have brought the specimens home, even if I had
wished, which I did not, as the spider was a very common species, easily
to be procured nearer home. The species I cannot name; I sent several
fine specimens, stuffed, to London, in 1851; it is wholly of a
gray-brown colour, and clothed with coarse pile. Doubtless you will
immediately know the exact species to which I refer.
"If the Mygales did not prey upon vertebrated animals, I do not see how
they could find sufficient subsistence.
[Illustration: BIRD-EATING SPIDER.]
"On the extensive sandy campos of Santarem, so bare in vegetation, there
are hundreds of the broad slanting burrows of the large stout species,
(that fine one, dark brown with paler lines down the legs, of which I
sent specimens in 1851.) The campos, I know, from close research, to be
almost destitute of insects, but at the same time to swarm with small
lizards, and some curious ground finches of the Emberiza group (one of
which has a song wonderfully resembling our yellow bunting of
England), besides which, vast numbers of the _Caprimulgidæ_ and ground
doves lay their eggs on the bare ground.
"I believe this species of Mygale feeds on these animals and their eggs
at night. Just at the close of day, when I have been hurrying home, not
liking to be benighted on the pathless waste, I have surprised these
monsters, who retreated within the mouths of their burrows on my
approach."[163]
[142] _Brit. Rept._, 51.
[143] _Penny Cyclop._, xxvi. 348.
[144] Loudon's _Mag. Nat. Hist._ for 1837, p. 441.
[145] _Zool._, 2305.
[146] Ibid., 2355.
[147] _Zool._, 7278.
[148] _Captivity among the Indians._
[149] _Zool._, 2269.
[150] _Introd. à l'Entom._, ii. 143.
[151] _Op. cit._, viii. 163.
[152] _Westwood's Mod. Classif. Ins._, ii. 430.
[153] _Introd. to Entom._ Lett. xxv.
[154] _Mag. Nat. Hist._, New Ser., i. 353.
[155] Ibid., i. 553.
[156] Dr Boisduval, one hot evening in June, found caterpillars on grass
which diffused a phosphorescent light; he thought them to be those of
_Mamestra oleracca_--one of the most abundant of our moths--but they
seemed larger than common; and whether owing to want of care in the
rearing or to a condition of disease--which may, indeed, have been the
cause of their luminosity--none of them attained the chrysalis state,
and so the species was not absolutely decided.
[157] _Introd. to Entom._, _loc. cit._
[158] _Exped. into Int. of Brazil._
[159] Tennent, _Ceylon_, ii. 226.
[160] Probably we should read "diameter" for "circumference." A spider
whose legs cover an area of six inches _in circumference_ is by no means
rare even in England.
[161] _Journ. Asiat. Soc._
[162] _Proc. Entom. Soc._, November 1, 1852.
[163] _Proc. Entomol. Soc._, July 2, 1855.
VIII.
FASCINATION.
It is a notion of long standing and widely diffused, that certain
predaceous animals have a power, which, however, they only occasionally
exert, of paralysing the creatures on which they prey, so as utterly to
take away the faculty of flight, and even, in some circumstances, of
drawing them, as if by an irresistible influence, to their known and
dreaded destruction. This fascinating power has been most generally
attributed to serpents, and is supposed to reside in a peculiar glare
and fixity of the eyes, which appear to mesmerise the victims. If the
gaze be interrupted, _on either part_, though but for a moment, it is
supposed that the spell is broken. Is there any such power? or is it
merely one of the many myths with which popular natural history is still
burdened, and which it is the province of real science to explode? Let
us gather together a few of the facts on which the opinion rests.
I am not sure whether I ought to reckon as such the following statement,
for I do not know the value of the authority on which it rests. It is,
however, sufficiently curious.
Dr Bird, a somewhat appropriate authority in this case, mentions an
incident which happened in America. "Two boys lighted by chance upon a
large black snake; upon which one of them resolved to ascertain whether
the snake, so celebrated for its powers, could fascinate him. He
advanced a few steps nearer the snake, and made a stand, steadily
looking on him. When the snake observed him in that situation, he raised
his head with a quick motion, and the lad says, that at that instant
there appeared something to flash in his eyes, which he could compare to
nothing more similar than the rays of light thrown from a glass or
mirror when turned in the sun-shine; he said it dazzled his eyes; at the
same time the colours appeared very beautiful ... he felt as if he was
in a whirlpool, and that every turn brought him nearer to the centre.
His comrade seeing him approach nearer to the snake, immediately ran and
killed it."[164]
There is, however, better authority than this for the belief in
serpent-mesmerism. Professor Kalm states of the Rattlesnake of North
America, that it will frequently lie at the bottom of a tree on which a
squirrel is seated. The snake fixes his eyes upon the little animal, and
from that moment it cannot escape: it begins a doleful outcry, runs up
the tree a little way, comes down again, then goes up, and afterwards
comes still lower. The snake continues at the bottom of the tree, with
its eyes fixed on the squirrel; and its attention is so entirely taken
up, that a person accidentally approaching may make a considerable
noise, without so much as the snake's turning about. The squirrel comes
lower, and at last leaps down to the snake, whose mouth is already wide
open for its reception. The little animal then, with a piteous cry, runs
into its jaws and is swallowed.
Catesby, though he says he never saw the phenomenon himself, reports the
same thing on the testimony of many witnesses, who all agreed that the
animals, particularly birds and squirrels, no sooner spy the snake than
they skip from spray to spray, hovering and approaching gradually nearer
their enemy, regardless of any other danger; but with distracted
gestures and outcries descend, though from the top of the loftiest
trees, to the mouth of the snake, who, opening his jaws, takes them in
and in an instant swallows them.[165]
More recently Acrell tells the same story, as unquestionable. He
declares that as the snake, who is the most indolent of all serpents,
lies under the shade of a tree, opening his jaws a little, he fixes his
brightly-glittering eyes on any bird or squirrel which is in it. The
squirrel, uttering a mournful and feeble cry, leaps from bough to bough,
as if seeking to escape, but presently, as if struck with the
fascination, he comes down the tree, and flings himself, with a spring,
into the very jaws of his enemy. A mouse, shut up with a rattlesnake in
an iron box, at first sat in one corner, the snake opposite to it. The
reptile fixed its terrible eye on the little trembler, which at length
threw itself into the mouth of the serpent.[166]
Lawson affirms that _he has seen_ the phenomenon actually take place
with a squirrel and a rattlesnake.[167]
I said that the belief is widely spread. We have seen it in North
America; we will now look at it in Africa.
Captain Forbes incidentally mentions a case analogous to these. Passing
through some high grass at Ahomey, he observed, within an inch of his
leg, a small lizard, with its eyes fixed. It did not move at his
approach. At the same moment a cobra darted at it, and before he could
raise his stick, bore the victim away. The captain naturally enough was
occupied with his own narrow escape, and simply narrates the facts
without comment; but the fixity of the gaze, and the motionlessness of
the lizard, were not a little remarkable.[168]
Mr Ellis, in his charming volume on Madagascar and the Cape, makes the
following observations:--[169]
"In a country abounding, as Africa does, with serpents, I expected to
hear many anecdotes respecting them; and, conversing on one occasion
with Mr Pullen, a farmer who has lived many years in the country, and
seemed to have paid rather more than usual attention to this species of
reptile, he said he once saw a mouse running in a field, and that,
coming in sight of a snake, though at a considerable distance, it
instantly stopped. The snake fixed its eye on the mouse, which then
crept slowly towards the snake, and, as it approached nearer, trembled
and shrieked most piteously, but still kept approaching until quite
close, when it seemed to become prostrate, and the snake then devoured
it. On another occasion he had watched a snake capture a mouse in the
same manner; but, as it was retreating, he followed, and struck it on
the back with a stick, when it opened its mouth, and the mouse escaping,
ran for some distance, then fell down; but after a minute recovered and
ran away. Another time he said he watched a snake in the water, which
had fixed its eye on a frog sitting amongst the grass on the bank. The
frog, though greatly alarmed, seemed unable to stir, until Mr Pullen
gradually pushed a rush growing near so that it intervened between the
eye of the snake and its intended victim, when the frog, as if suddenly
liberated, darted away. Mr Pullen's ideas were in accordance with the
popular notion, that the snake has the power of exercising some mesmeric
or other influence through the steady fixing of its eye, and that
whatever intercepts this gaze breaks, as it were, the charm, and sets
the prisoner free."
A most important witness on this matter is Dr Andrew Smith, the learned
zoologist of South Africa, who thus soberly throws the weight of his own
thoroughly competent and most conclusive personal observations into the
affirmative scale. In his interesting account of the Boomslange, a
serpent of considerable size found in that region, he says:--
"As this snake, _Bucephalus capensis_, in our opinion, is not provided
with a poisonous fluid to instil into wounds which these fangs may
inflict, they must consequently be intended for a purpose different to
those which exist in poisonous reptiles. Their use seems to be to offer
obstacles to the retrogression of animals, such as birds, &c., while
they are only partially within the mouth; and, from the circumstance of
these fangs being directed backwards, and not admitting of being raised
so as to form an angle with the edge of the jaw, they are well fitted to
act as powerful holders when once they penetrate the skin and soft parts
of the prey which their possessors may be in the act of swallowing.
Without such fangs escapes would be common; with such, they are rare.
"The natives of South Africa regard the _Bucephalus capensis_ as
poisonous; but in their opinion we cannot concur, as we have not been
able to discover the existence of any glands manifestly organised for
the secretion of poison. The fangs are enclosed in a soft, pulpy sheath,
the inner surface of which is commonly coated with a thin glairy
secretion. This secretion possibly may have something acrid and
irritating in its qualities, which may, when it enters a wound, occasion
pain and even swelling, but nothing of greater importance.
"The _Bucephalus capensis_ is generally found upon trees, to which it
resorts for the purpose of catching birds, upon which it delights to
feed. The presence of a specimen in a tree is generally soon discovered
by the birds of the neighbourhood, who collect around it, and fly to and
fro, uttering the most piercing cries, until some one, more
terror-struck than the rest, actually scans its lips, and, almost
without resistance, becomes a meal for its enemy. During such a
proceeding the snake is generally observed with its head raised about
ten or twelve inches above the branch round which its body and tail are
entwined, with its mouth open and its neck inflated, as if anxiously
endeavouring to increase the terror which it would almost appear it was
aware would sooner or later bring within its grasp some one of the
feathered group.
"Whatever may be said in ridicule of fascination, it is nevertheless
true that birds, and even quadrupeds, are, under such circumstances,
unable to retire from the presence of certain of their enemies; and,
what is even more extraordinary, unable to resist the propensity to
advance from a situation of actual safety into one of the most imminent
danger. This I have often seen exemplified in the case of birds and
snakes; and I have heard of instances equally curious, in which
antelopes and other quadrupeds have been so bewildered by the sudden
appearance of crocodiles, and by the grimaces and contortions they
practised, as to be unable to fly or even to move from the spot towards
which they were approaching to seize them."[170]
It may have been the Boomslange to which Le Vaillant alludes, who says
that he saw, on the branch of a tree, a species of shrike, trembling as
if in convulsions; and at the distance of nearly four feet, on another
branch, he beheld a large species of snake, that was lying with
outstretched neck, and fiery eyes, gazing steadily at the poor animal.
The agony of the bird was so great, that it was deprived of the power of
moving away; and when one of the party killed the snake, the shrike was
found dead upon the spot, and that entirely from fear; for on
examination it appeared not to have received the slightest wound. The
same traveller informs us, that a short time afterwards he observed a
small mouse, in similar agonising convulsions, about two yards distant
from a snake, whose eyes were intently fixed upon it; and on frightening
away the reptile, and taking up the mouse, it expired in his hand.[171]
In a record, by Mr D. T. Evans, of some experiments with Venomous
Serpents, made at the Zoological Gardens, mainly with a view to test the
efficacy of a reputed remedy for their bite,--_Simaba cedron_--and which
were pursued with the utmost philosophic care, we find the following
interesting particulars:--"The attitudes and movements of the serpent
intending to bite were very striking and beautiful. In the first place,
he made, with the posterior half of his body, a bold curve, having a
strong prehensile 'purchase' on the floor of the cage, so as to secure a
steady fulcrum for the rapid dart made at the time of the bite. The
upper half of the body was raised some ten inches or a foot, the neck
strongly arched, and the head, bent at nearly right angles with the
neck, was poised directly opposite the prey. In such position the
serpent remained a greater or lesser time (sometimes as long as twenty
minutes) according to circumstances. During this interval, the slightest
motion of the animal before him was followed by an instantaneous and
correspondent movement of the head and neck of the serpent. The purpose
seemed to be that of aim-taking, for the eyes were intently fixed upon
the prey; but I am by no means sure that the snake, knowing that the
latter cannot escape him, does not derive pleasure from this prolonged
and intent gaze. At all events, in one experiment, where the head of a
rattlesnake so engaged was sideways to the glass of the cage, and near
it, I observed, and called attention to the fact, a remarkable
vermicular motion along the course of the poison-gland to the opening of
the angle of the mouth, which we thought might afford him pleasure, and
this continued until the snake struck his prey.
"So far the Serpents. I now proceed to describe the peculiarities shewn
by the animals on which we experimented. Some philosophers have denied
innate ideas to man; these and some others have furthermore denied an
instinctive apprehension of danger in animals. They say that of itself,
as born, the hare has no dread of the hound: that its fear is acquired
of experience. I concur in neither of these opinions, and think the
latter altogether refuted by the conduct of the animals exposed to
serpents in these experiments. Not one of the guinea-pigs or rabbits
(which were all something under their full growth) had ever seen a
serpent; yet when introduced to the cage they shewed unequivocal
symptoms of distress and fear. In some instances they actually screamed
before they were struck. They generally shewed restlessness at first,
but when the serpent, intending to strike, poised himself in front, they
became for a time, if not altogether, motionless. Is there such a thing
as 'fascination?' If by this is meant a pleasurable paralysis of the
animal's powers, I think it more than doubtful; but a deprivation of
the power of motion from terror may, perhaps, take place. All, however,
that I speak to is a perfectly motionless condition of snake and prey,
lasting several minutes."[172]
Nor are there wanting examples of the same power exercised by the common
Snake of our own country. I content myself with the following two, both
of very recent record:--
"Up the hill above Tyneham," writes the Rev. Henry Bond, last August,
"towards the sea, I was struck by the shrill cry and fluttering
agitation of a common hedge-sparrow, in a whitethorn bush. Regardless of
my presence, its remarkable motions were continued, getting, at every
hop from bough to bough, lower and lower down in the bush. Drawing
nearer, I saw a common snake coiled up, but having its head erect,
watching the sparrow; the moment the snake saw me it glided away, and
the sparrow flew off with its usual mode of flight."[173]
This anecdote brings out another by Mr John Henry Belfrage, of Muswell
Hill:--"When proceeding down the avenue here one morning, at a turn in
the path I saw a robin, which appeared to me spell-bound, so much so as
to allow a much closer approach than is usual even with that boldest of
the feathered tribe. On going nearer I perceived what I took to be the
cause, in a large common snake, which was lying coiled up on one side of
the path, with its head a little raised. My appearance broke the spell,
and the robin flew away; at the same time, the snake dropped its head
and assumed a perfectly inert appearance."[174]
A writer in the _Journal of the Indian Archipelago_ thus reports the
mesmeric faculty exercised upon a certainly somewhat unlikely
subject:--"On approaching an almost dry drain, I saw a snake slowly
extending his coils, raising his head, and steadfastly gazing on what I
saw to be an eel of about a foot in length. The eel was directly
opposite to the snake, and glance seemed to meet glance, when the snake,
having the requisite proximity, darted on the eel and caught it about an
inch behind the head, and carried it off; but the captor was soon
himself a captive, for with a blow on his head I secured both."[175]
The mystery is, as usual in such cases, attempted to be explained away.
Man does not like mystery; scientific man least of all: it is humbling
to the pride of science to be obliged to confess that there exists
anything unaccountable to the initiated. Mr W. C. L. Martin thus
"explains" the statements of Dr A. Smith, and all such accounts:--"There
is nothing mysterious in all this; the snake does not _mesmerise_ its
prey, but merely so terrifies it as to stupify it; besides, the victim
may feel an impulse similar to that which urges many nervous persons on
the edge of a precipice, or top of a lofty tower, to throw themselves
down headlong, and which we have heard such describe as resisted with
difficulty; so may the panic-struck bird feel an impulse to rush into
danger which it might escape by flight."[176]
And again:--"Fear, amounting to panic, solicitude for its young, and
efforts to drive away the dreaded intruder, leading the bird to venture
too closely to the snake for its own safety, produce the results
erroneously attributed to the Reptile's fancied power of fascination by
its glance, or by some mystic property."[177]
Dr Barton, of Philadelphia, who, at the close of the last century,
published a memoir on the fascinating powers attributed to certain
serpents, advocated the same views. He considered that in almost every
instance the supposed power was exerted on birds at the particular
season of nidification, and that the whole hypothesis originated in the
[Greek: storgê] which prompts them to protect their eggs or young. No
doubt _some_ of the instances which have been reported as examples of
fascination are capable of such an explanation, but surely not all; and
the fallacy, here again, as in so many parallel cases, lies in the
advocating of some theory which will cover a certain number of the
facts, and the ignoring of all such as will not be so accounted for. Is
it to be supposed that Dr A. Smith could not distinguish between the
condition of involuntary paralysis of the faculties which he says he has
_often_ seen, and the insane boldness of nesting birds? Had the mice,
seen by Mr Pullen, had the frog, young ones to protect? Or the squirrel
mentioned by Kalm? or the mouse seen by Le Vaillant? or the eel in the
drain? But what is the value of a hypothesis,--so far as its claims to
solve this question are concerned,--which will not touch these cases?
When Mr Martin denies that there is anything mysterious in the matter,
and in the same sentence admits that "the victim may feel an impulse to
rush into the danger which it might escape," he just yields the whole
point. I venture to affirm that this _is_ something mysterious,
something totally unaccountable. I ask _what_, and _whence_, and _why_,
this strange impulse that overcomes the first of all instincts, the
prime law of self-preservation?
It does not explain the cause of the phenomenon, though it possibly
helps us to determine its proper seat, to learn that fascination belongs
to other animals besides the serpent tribes. We shall perhaps not err if
we conclude that the peculiarity resides not in the object, but in the
subject; that it is a mental emotion capable of being excited by objects
having little in common except the death-terror which they excite. I
have no doubt that it is a phase of extreme terror; the singularity of
the phenomenon consists in the reversal of ordinary instinctive laws
which it induces. My readers will probably be interested in the details
of some cases in which the exciters of the emotion were animals other
than serpents. Here is one, apparently related with care and
truthfulness, though anonymous, in which the fascinator was as unlikely
as can be well imagined to excite, and the fascinatee to feel, the
emotion:--
"One evening, being seated in a room at Garrackpore, the window of which
was open, and the ceiling on one side sloped downwards towards the
window, my attention was attracted by a butterfly which chanced to fly
into the room. I observed its motions for a minute or two, when I
thought there was something that appeared unnatural in them, and the
insect began to dart to and fro in one direction, occasionally, however,
varying its flight about the room. I looked up to see what it could
possibly be at, and instantly observed an ordinary-sized lizard on the
cloth of the upper ceiling. I had not even then the most distant idea of
what was really going on; but seeing the butterfly dart every now and
then at the lizard, I supposed it in play, till its motions became less
quick and animated. The lizard remained all this time immovable, but at
last suddenly shifted its ground to the sloping part of the ceiling. The
motions of the butterfly became still more languid, until at length, to
my utter surprise, I saw the lizard open its mouth, and the butterfly
flew directly into it. The lizard was about half a minute swallowing it,
wings and all. Until the last act of this curious scene, though I well
knew the lizard's object, I supposed it would probably make a leap at
the butterfly, yet had no idea of its succeeding, and expected to see
the butterfly fly away. Had I had an idea of the cause, I should have
broken the charm.
"From that moment I never had the least doubt of the power of
fascination: that power I conceive to be _terror_, which, if the object
was sufficiently terrible, I believe would act equally on man or any
other creature."[178]
Still more strange is it to hear of scorpions fascinating blue-bottle
flies! "On my arrival" says Mr Robert Hunter, "at Nágpur, in Central
India, in 1847, I requested that the first scorpion found in the house
might be allowed to live for a few minutes, that I might have an
opportunity of observing its form and movements. In that part of India
one has rarely to wait long for such a visitant, and on an early evening
my colleague, the Rev. Mr Hislop, announced that there was a scorpion on
the wall. A lamp was set down on the floor, and we took convenient
stations for noting what might pass. Just then a large fly, of the genus
Musca, made its appearance, and soon became aware of the presence of the
scorpion. A strong fury seemed to seize it, irresistibly impelling it to
an insane attack on the terrible occupant of the wall: it flew at it
with all the little force it could muster, the scorpion meanwhile
stretching out its lobster-like claw to catch it as it came. At the
first charge, the fly rebounded from the crustaceous integument of its
adversary, having done no more damage than if a child were to apply its
hand to the well-mailed body of a cuirassier. It seemed amazed at its
own audacity; and in a state of great apparent agitation wheeled round,
and taking precipitately to flight, soon put two or three yards of safe
space between itself and its formidable but wingless foe. We now
forcibly hoped 'the better part of valour' might be allowed to prevail.
But no! the tiny creature stood--it ventured to look--there glared still
in view the malignant form. What could the poor animal do but make a
second brilliant onset, in which it again eluded the outstretched claw
of its enemy, and, as before, was successful in effecting a retreat?
'Surely,' we mused, 'no further knight-errantry will be attempted: the
most exacting would consider this enough.' But we were mistaken. Again
and again did the fly return to the combat, till in an unguarded moment
it flew exactly into the open claw, which closing, rendered escape
impossible. The generosity of a Mouravieff was scarcely to be looked for
in the scorpion, which, as will be readily believed, lost no time in
devouring its gallant captive. Possibly the fly may have been partly
dazzled by the glare of the lamp. But undoubtedly it was in the main
fascination, induced by the sight of the dread figure on the wall, that
impelled it to begin the unequal contest, which could terminate only in
the loss of its life."[179]
After these cases, I fear my readers would see but little of the
romantic in stories of stoats mesmerising hares and rabbits, or foxes
paralysing pullets. The former are common enough,--the wretched hare
creeping along with a bewildered look, as if its back were broken, or
screaming in helpless immobility. I will confine myself to a single
narrative furnished by Mr Henry Bond, to whom this chapter is already
indebted for one case. As he was walking on the hillside above West
Creech Farm, in Penbeck, Somerset, last August, where the down is
scattered with very low furze-bushes, his attention was arrested by a
cry of distress. It proceeded from a rabbit which was cantering round in
a ring, with a halting gait. He watched it for some minutes; but, as
the circle became smaller, and the rabbit more agitated, he perceived a
stoat turning its head with the rabbit's motion, and fixing its gaze
upon it. He struck a blow at the stoat, but missed it; its attention was
thus withdrawn from its intended victim, which instantly ran away with
great vigour in a straight direction.[180]
This is a remarkably good case; the circular movement of the rabbit; the
ever-diminishing circle; the rotation of the stoat; the fixity of its
gaze; the liberation of the rabbit the moment the stoat was disturbed;
and the instant recovery of its faculties on the breaking of the
spell;--all these are circumstances of the highest interest in a case
avouched by so good a naturalist as Mr Bond.
Mr J. H. Gurney reports the account of a respectable gamekeeper, who,
being much annoyed by the nightly visits of a fox to the poultry, could
not imagine how Reynard managed to effect his purpose, as they roosted
on a large spreading oak. One morning, however, just as day was dawning,
he heard a great noise among the poultry, and, looking out of the
window, saw a fox running round and round under the place where they
sat, and soon observed that the fowls began to fall from the tree in
great confusion. The fox immediately seized his victim, and the mystery
was so far solved. A day or two afterwards the fox, a very large male,
was killed in an adjoining paddock, and no further assaults were made
upon the poultry.
In this case the result was possibly effected by vertigo; the birds,
bewildered and amazed in the dim light, followed with their eyes the
course of the sly depredator, as he ran swiftly in a circle beneath,
until the frequent turning of their heads made them giddy and unable to
keep their balance. _But how did the fox know that such a result would
follow?_
The same gentleman gives, from his own observation, a case that is more
to the point. Here a bird is the mesmeric practitioner. "I once saw a
golden eagle which appeared entirely to fascinate a rabbit that was put
into the large cage in which the eagle was kept. As soon as the rabbit
was introduced, the eagle fixed his eye upon it, and the rabbit intently
returned the gaze, and began going round the eagle in circles,
approaching nearer each time, the eagle meanwhile turning on his axis
(as it were) on the block of wood upon which he was seated, and keeping
his eye fixed upon that of the rabbit.
"When the rabbit had approached very near to the bottom of the eagle's
perch, it stood up on its hind legs, and looked the eagle in the face;
the eagle then made his pounce, which appeared at once to break the
charm, and the rabbit ran for its life, but it was too late for it to
escape the clutch of the eagle, and the instant death which followed
that tremendous squeeze."[181]
I am not sure how far a parallelism exists between this animal
fascination by the eye, and that attraction which fire is well known to
possess for many creatures. Shelley sings of
"The desire of the moth for the star,"
as if it were a romantic passion for that which is bright and beautiful.
This is, of course, a poet's aspect; the insect-collector, who wants to
fill his cabinet--"my friend the weaver," who nightly pursues his
"untaxed and undisputed game"--well knows that the glare of his
bull's-eye lamp will attract the moths by thousands on a damp night in
June. The little flitting atoms pass and repass across the field of
light, suddenly flashing into full radiance, and in an instant relapsing
into the darkness, unless his gauze net is too rapid for them. I have
often sat reading late at night with a candle in the window, and
observed with interest how many insects of all orders will soon
congregate on the outside; now and then some large moth coming up with a
dull _thud_, or a great mailed beetle dashing against the glass with a
crash that makes one look sharply up to see whether he has not cracked
the pane. In Jamaica I have taken many valuable beetles and other
insects around the candle-shades at an open window, which were not met
with in any other way.
So in Alabama, where it is customary in balmy autumn evenings for the
family to sit in the yard under the broad sheltering trees, by the
flickering light of the yard-fire. This fire is lighted at dusk on an
iron tripod breast-high, and kept up till bed-time. It is the duty of a
negro urchin to keep it constantly bright with splints of pine, so as to
maintain a perpetual blaze, as the object is to illuminate the yard and
its contiguous offices. The little "nigger" nods, of course, but the
loud scolding voice of master, mistress, or overseer, or any one else,
rates him, and rouses him to duty, as soon as the flame falls. It is
pleasant to sit and watch the effect of the light, either transmitted
through or reflected from the quivering leaves of the surrounding trees,
the blaze now rising brightly and playing in tongue-like flickering
spires, now sinking and dying to a ruddy glow, then suddenly reviving
under the frightened watchfulness of the sable minister, who plays the
part of vestal virgin at this altar.
Large insects often play around this fire. Beetles "wheel their drony
flight" in buzzing circles round for a few turns, and are gone; and
moths come fluttering about, and often scorch their plumy wings. I have
taken some very fine Sphinges and other moths thus; and the only
specimen I ever saw of that very curious insect the Mole-cricket alive
(a species distinct from, but very closely allied to, our European
insect) was one that suddenly dashed into the ashes of the
light-stand--a curious and interesting circumstance, when connected with
the opinion that I have before alluded to, that the _Gryllotalpa
Europæa_ is one of the producers of the _Ignis fatuus_.
Birds also are attracted by light at night. I have read of a Titmouse
that was seen fluttering around a gas-lamp in the suburbs of London, and
would not be driven away; it at length made its entrance into the lamp
through the orifice at the bottom, and continued to flit around and
across the jet. In 1832, a Herring-gull struck one of the mullions of
the Bell Rock Light-house with such force, that two of the polished
plates of glass, measuring about two feet square, and a quarter of an
inch in thickness, were shivered to pieces, and scattered over the floor
in a thousand atoms, to the great alarm of the keeper on watch, and the
other inmates of the house, who rushed instantly to the light-room. The
gull was found to measure five feet between the tips of the wings. In
his gullet was a large herring, and in his throat a piece of plate-glass
of about one inch in length.
Dr Livingstone gives some curious examples of the attractive power of
fire over various creatures in South Africa, which he attributes to a
sort of fascination. "Fire," he says, "exercises a fascinating effect on
some kinds of toads. They may be seen rushing into it on the evenings
without ever starting back on feeling pain. Contact with the hot embers
rather increases the energy with which they strive to gain the hottest
parts, and they never cease their struggles for the centre, even when
their juices are coagulating and their limbs stiffening in the roasting
heat. Various insects also are thus fascinated; but the scorpions may be
seen coming away from the fire in fierce disgust, and they are so
irritated as to inflict at that time their most painful stings."[182]
[164] _Peter Pilgrim._
[165] _Hist. of Carolina._
[166] _Amænit. Acad._
[167] _Hist. of Carolina._
[168] _Dahomey and the Dahomans._
[169] _Visits to Madagascar_, 231.
[170] _Zoology of South Africa_--Reptilia.
[171] _Oiseaux d'Afrique._
[172] _Times_ Newspaper, November 9, 1852.
[173] _Zoologist_, 7273.
[174] _Zoologist_, 7382.
[175] Quoted in the _Zoologist_, 2397.
[176] _Pict. Museum_, ii. 107.
[177] _Reptiles_, (Rel. Tr. Soc.,) 206.
[178] _Bengal Sporting Mag._ for Oct. 1836; cited in the _Zoologist_,
5070.
[179] _Zool._, 5214.
[180] _Zool._, 7273.
[181] _Zool._ 4049, 4050.
[182] _Travels_, 144.
IX.
SERPENT-CHARMING.
From the day when the solemn doom was pronounced,--"I will put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed," the
serpent-form has begotten revulsion and dread in the human breast. And
deservedly; for a venomous serpent is a terrible enemy: the direful
venom of sin injected by "that old serpent, the Devil," is well
symbolised by the most potent of all lethic agencies,--the poison of the
rattlesnake or the cobra.
And yet in all ages there have been persons in the countries where the
most venomous snakes abound, who have professed, and have been believed
to enjoy, an absolute immunity from their bites, and even to exercise
some inexplicable power over them, whereby their rage is soothed, and
they are rendered for the time gentle and harmless. The Holy Scriptures
repeatedly allude to this ancient art. The Magicians of Egypt, who
turned their rods into serpents, are supposed to have had recourse to a
secret known, it is said, to the modern conjurors of the same country,
who, by pressing the nape of the neck of the cobra with their fingers,
throw it into a sort of catalepsy, by which its whole body becomes rigid
like a rod, and from which it is relieved by suddenly throwing it on the
ground. Aaron's rod was a veritable rod before and after the
transaction, but changed into a serpent by Divine miraculous energy:
theirs were serpents made to assume the appearance of rods for the
moment by a cunning device.
Other and more direct allusions, however, occur to the art of
serpent-charming. Thus the obduracy of the wicked is compared to "the
deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of
charmers, charming never so wisely."[183] And the Aseverity of the
Chaldean invaders is depicted under this imagery:--"Behold, I will send
serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they
shall bite you, saith the LORD."[184]
Among the ancient Romans the Psylli, a people of Africa, and the Marsi,
a German tribe who had settled in Italy, were reputed to have the power
of charming serpents, and to be endowed with immunity from the results
of their venom. Celsus, however, maintains that this power consisted in
an acquaintance with the fact, now well known, that animal poisons are
hurtful only when mingled with the blood. They may therefore be taken
into the mouth with perfect impunity. With reference to so great an
authority, however, there is more in the art and mystery of
serpent-charming than this.
When Lucian describes the Babylonian magician as walking abroad, and
calling to him all the serpents that were near, with certain ceremonies,
such as the utterance of sacred words from an ancient book, lustrations
made with sulphur and a torch, and solemn marchings in a circle, and
when he asserts that the venomous reptiles, _nolentes volentes_,
presented themselves harmless at his feet,--he describes a scene which
is sufficiently familiar to European travellers in Egypt and India. And
so, when Silius Italicus speaks of Atyr, instructed how to disarm
serpents of their dire venom, and to lull to sleep the terrible
water-snakes with his magic touch, he refers, whether truly or falsely,
to something of a more potent character than the feat by which Queen
Philippa saved the life of her royal husband.
Immunity from the poison of serpents, and serpent-charming, are two
things. The former, so far as it depends on the natural law already
mentioned, scarcely comes within the province of this work. But is there
not an innate immunity residing in some persons, and even in some
peoples, by which, without the operation of any recognised natural law,
or even any effort, they are securely protected either against the bites
of venomous serpents, or, at least, against the fatality which is the
ordinary result of being bitten?
The Psylli, according to Pliny, were so characteristically endowed with
this immunity, that they made it a test of the legitimacy of their
children; for they were accustomed to expose their new-born babes (only
in doubtful cases, we may suppose) to the most venomous serpents they
could find; assured that if their paternity was pure Psyllic, they would
be quite unharmed. Of this tribe was the ambassador Hexagon, who,
boasting of his power before the Roman consuls, submitted to the
crucial test which they suggested, of being inclosed in a vessel
swarming with poisonous reptiles, which, says the legendary story, hurt
him not.
The same historian tells us that the Psylli, who formerly inhabited the
vicinity of the Greater Syrtis,--that is, the modern Tripoli and
Barca,--were conquered and almost exterminated by the Nasamones, who
possessed their land; but that a remnant fled to some distant region. It
is not improbable that the present inhabitants of Sennaar, on the south
of Egypt, may be the lineal descendants of these same Psylli; for, since
Egypt was densely peopled and highly cultivated, a barbarous tribe could
scarcely have made good their footing there; and as on the other side
was the Great Desert of the Sâhra, and on the north the sea, there was
no resource open to them but to creep along the desert edge of Egypt
till they found a thinly-inhabited land sufficiently savage to enable
them to form a settlement. The first region of this character that they
could possibly find would be Nubia; and there it is most interesting to
know that there exists a people at the present time, pretending to the
same powers as the old Psylli. Bruce, whose testimony, at first much
impugned, has come to be received with confidence, avouches 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_--a little asp with two horns, of the most deadly
venom--into their hands at all times, put them into their bosoms, and
throw them at one another as children do balls, without ever irritating
them by this usage so much as to make them bite. One day when the
traveller was sitting with the brother of the prime minister of Sennaar,
a slave of his brought a _Cerastes_, which he had just taken out of a
hole, and was using with every sort of familiarity. Bruce expressed his
suspicion that the teeth had been drawn, but was assured that they were
not, both by the slave and by his master, who, taking the viper from
him, wound it round his arm, and at the traveller's desire, ordered the
servant to accompany him with it to his residence. Here Bruce, to test
the power of the serpent, took a chicken by the neck, and made it
flutter; the seeming indifference of the snake immediately gave place to
eagerness, and he bit the fowl with great signs of anger, which died
almost immediately. Bruce considers that the indifference was only
seeming towards the man,--that it was indeed powerlessness, for he
constantly observed that, however lively the snake was before, yet upon
being seized by any of the blacks, it seemed as if taken with sudden
sickness and feebleness, frequently shut its eyes, and never turned its
mouth towards the arm of the person who held it.
How exactly this account agrees with the words of Silius,
"---- _tactuque_ graves _sopire_ chelydros."
The Nubian traveller informs us that the Arabs--meaning apparently the
Moslem blacks--have not this secret naturally, but that from infancy
they acquire an exemption from the mortal consequences attending the
bites of all venomous reptiles by chewing a certain root, and washing
themselves (it is not _anointing_) with an infusion of certain plants in
water. This is by no means improbable; and it were much to be desired
that the root and the plants were obtained and identified, that their
preventive powers might be tested by competent men of science. In all
probability they would be found to belong to the Quassia tribe, the
natural order _Simarubaceæ_, plants of the tropical regions of both
continents, whose juices are of an intense bitterness. An infusion of
the chips of _Quassia amara_ and of _Simaruba amara_ is found to be an
effectual poison to flies; and the Brazilian Indians use an infusion of
_Simaruba versicolor_ as a specific against the bite of serpents, and
use it with great effect in the pediculous diseases which are so common
among that people.
It was a plant of this order, _Simaba cedron_, on which experiments were
made a few years ago, at the Zoological Gardens, just before the
lamentable death, by the bite of the Cobra, of poor Gurling, who,
indeed, assisted in them. Mr Squire, the eminent chemist, was desirous
of testing the powers of this plant, which, dried and reduced to powder,
is in high repute among the Indians of South America as a serpentifuge.
Dr Quain and Mr Evans concurred in this desire; and, with the permission
of the Zoological Society of London, a series of experiments, of much
interest, if not very conclusive in their results, were performed at the
Gardens, on the 8th July 1852.
The trials were made only on small animals, but in each case the alleged
remedy proved inefficacious. The experimenters, however, think that it
would be unsafe to reject the _Simaba cedron_ as an antidote because it
here failed, inasmuch as death followed so rapidly that there was small
opportunity for its action. It is not until it shall have been tried and
have failed upon stronger animals, that, in the face of the experience
of the Indians in hot climates, it should be repudiated. The remedy was
applied in the form of an infusion poured down the throat of the bitten
animal as quickly as possible after the stroke, and of the moistened
powder applied to the wound. It seems to me worthy of consideration
whether, in the light of what Bruce says of the Nubians, a washing of
the body with the infusion, or an imbibition of it, or both, _before_
the serpent's attack, might not be more efficacious as a preventive
either of the bite or of its results, than its administration afterwards
as a cure. Whatever be the substance with which the Nubians wash
themselves, it seems to communicate to the body some quality, perhaps of
odour, which repels and sickens serpents. Now, this may reside in the
intense bitterness of the _Simarubaceæ_; and it would be worth while to
try whether a rattlesnake or a puff-adder would strike a guinea-pig that
had just been bathed in an infusion of the _Simaba_, or to which a dose
of the same had just been administered, and if so, whether the bite then
would be fatal. Even if these experiments yielded no positive result, it
would still be open to consider whether the lapse of time, or a long
sea-voyage, or exposure to our moist climate, may not have deprived the
powdered root of the plant of antitoxic properties which it may have
possessed when freshly prepared in its native region.
Tschudi, whose researches into the natural history of Peru are replete
with interesting and valuable information, has some observations on the
native remedies for serpent-bites which I will cite, prefacing the
extract with a graphically terrible picture from his pen of the venomous
reptiles themselves:--
"The serpents are to be feared; and, on approaching them, it is not easy
to decide at the first view whether they belong to a poisonous or
innoxious species. In the forests, where the fallen leaves lie in
thick moist layers, the foot of the hunter sinks deep at every step.
Multitudes of venomous Amphibia are hatched in the half-putrescent
vegetable matter; and he who inadvertently steps on one of these
animals may consider himself uncommonly fortunate if he can effect
his retreat without being wounded. But it is not merely in these places,
which seem assigned by nature for their abode, that loathsome reptiles
are found: they creep between the roots of large trees, under the
thickly-interwoven brushwood, on the open grass-plats, and in the maize
and sugar-cane fields of the Indians; nay, they crawl even into their
huts, and most fortunate is it for the inhabitants of those districts
that the number of the venomous, compared with the innoxious reptiles,
is comparatively small. Of the poisonous serpents, only a few kinds are
known whose bite is attended with very dangerous consequences. The
minamaru or jergon (_Lachesis picta_, Tsch.) is, at most, three feet
long, with a broad, heart-shaped head, and a thick upper lip. It haunts
the higher forests, while in those lower down his place is filled by his
no less fearful relative, the flammon, (_Lachesis rhombeata_, Prince
Max.,) which is six or seven feet in length. These serpents are usually
seen coiled almost in a circle, the head thrust forward, and the fierce,
treacherous-looking eyes glaring around, watching for prey, upon which
they pounce with the swiftness of an arrow; then, coiling themselves up
again, they look tranquilly on the death-struggle of the victim. It
would appear that these Amphibia have a perfect consciousness of the
dreadful effect of their poisonous weapon, for they use it when they are
neither attacked nor threatened, and they wound not merely animals fit
for their food, but all that come within their reach. More formidable
than the two snakes just described, but happily much less common, is the
brown ten-inch-long viper (_Echidna ocellata_, Tsch.). It is brown, with
two rows of black circular spots. The effect of its bite is so rapid
that it kills a strong man in two or three minutes. So convinced are the
natives of its inevitably fatal result, that they never seek any remedy:
but immediately on receiving the wound lay themselves down to die. In
the montanas of Pangoa this viper abounds more than in any other
district: and never without apprehension do the cholos undertake their
annual journey for the coca harvest, as they fear to fall victims to the
bite of this viper. The warning sound of the rattlesnake is seldom
heard in the hot montanas, and never in the higher regions.
"Nature, who in almost all things has established an equilibrium,
supplies the natives with remedies against the bite of the serpent. One
of the cures most generally resorted to is the root of the amarucachu
(_Polianthes tuberosa_,[185] Linn.), cut into slips and laid upon the
wound. Another is the juice of the creeping plant called vijuco de huaco
(_Mikania huaco_,[186] Kunth), which is already very widely celebrated.
"This latter remedy was discovered by the negroes of the equatorial
province Choco. They remarked that a sparrow-hawk, called the _huaco_,
picked up snakes for his principal food, and when bitten by one it flew
to the vejuco and ate some of the leaves. At length the Indians thought
of making the experiment on themselves, and when bitten by serpents they
drank the expressed juice of the leaves of the vejuco, and constantly
found that the wound was thereby rendered harmless. The use of this
excellent plant soon became general, and in some places the belief of
the preservative power of the vejuco juice was carried so far that men
in good health were inoculated with it. In this process some spoonfuls
of the expressed fluid are drunk, and afterwards some drops are put into
incisions made in the hands, feet, and breast. The fluid is rubbed into
the wounds by fresh vejuco leaves. After this operation, according to
the testimony of persons worthy of credit, the bite of the poisonous
snake fails for a long time to have any evil effect. Beside the two
plants mentioned above, many others are used with more or less
favourable results. The inhabitants of the montana also resort to other
means, which are too absurd to be detailed here: yet these medicines are
often of benefit, for their operation is violently reactive. They
usually produce the effect of repeated emetics and cause great
perspiration. There is much difference in the modes of external
treatment of the wound, and burning is often employed. I saw an Indian
apply to his wife's foot, which had been bitten, a plaster consisting of
moist gunpowder, pulverised sulphur, and finely-chopped tobacco mixed up
together. He laid this over the wounded part, and set fire to it. This
application in connexion with one of the nausea-exciting remedies taken
inwardly had a successful result.
An English officer, engaged in the wars which freed the South American
republics from the Spanish dominion, thus speaks of a plant which is
probably the same _Mikania_. His account is curiously confirmatory of
the accuracy of Bruce:--
"Among the many medicinal and poisonous plants growing on the banks of
the Orinoco, one of the most singular is a species of _vejuco_, which,
when properly administered, proves a powerful preservative from the
effects of poisonous serpents. It even appears to deprive these reptiles
either of their power or inclination to use their fangs. Some of the
leaves and small branches are pounded, and applied in that state as a
cataplasm to both arms; the skin having been previously scarified freely
above the elbows. This species of inoculation is repeated, at stated
intervals; the juice of the bruised plant, diluted with water, being
also occasionally drunk. Several soldiers, belonging to General Tedeno's
division, had undergone this treatment, and frequently made the
advantage they had thus acquired useful on a march. They were thereby
enabled to take shelter in deserted huts, which we dared not enter on
account of the snakes always lurking in such places; although these men
could bring them out in their hands, without sustaining any injury. As
they had been for some time in our company, we could ascertain that they
had not any snakes in their possession concealed for the purpose of
deception. Besides, they could have little or no inducement to practice
an imposition upon us, as they neither asked for, nor expected, any
reward for exhibiting their skill in destroying these reptiles."[187]
According to Captain Forbes, the negroes of Dahomey employ a grass, or
grass-like herb, with success. One of his hammock-men had been bitten by
venomous snakes repeatedly, but, his father being a doctor, he had
escaped injury. Walking one day through some long grass, the captain,
pointing to the bare legs of his servant, asked if there was not danger.
"None," said he; "my father picks some grass, and if on the same day the
decoction is applied, the wound heals at once."[188]
Some animals, especially those which prey upon serpents, seem to be
proof against their bites. The Ichneumons or Mangoustes of Africa and
Asia have long been celebrated for their immunity, and veritable stories
have been narrated of their having recourse to some herb, when bitten,
after which they successfully renewed the attack. Percival, in his
account of Ceylon, relates that a Mangouste placed in a close room where
a venomous serpent was, instead of darting at it, as he would ordinarily
have done, ran peeping about anxiously seeking some way of 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 the open field, the Mangouste instantly
flew at the serpent, and soon destroyed it. After the combat the little
quadruped suddenly disappeared for a few minutes, and again returned.
Percival concludes, not unreasonably, that during its absence, it had
found the antidotal herb, and eaten of it. The natives state that the
Mangouste resorts on such occasions to the _Ophiorhiza mungos_, whose
root is reputed a specific for serpents' bites. This is a Cinchonaceous
plant, so intensely bitter that it is called by the Malays by a name
which signifies earth-gall.[189]
Captain Forbes in his interesting account of Dahomey, alludes to these
combats, which he says he has witnessed in India. He says that the
serpent (Cobra) has usually the advantage at first, but the Mangouste
retreating, devours some wild herb, returns and presently conquers.
Sir Emerson Tennent inclines to refer the immunity of the Mangouste to
an inherent property. He remarks that the mystery of its power has been
"referred to the supposition that there may be some peculiarity in its
organisation which renders it _proof against_ the poison of the serpent.
It remains for future investigation to determine how far this conjecture
is founded in truth; and whether in the blood of the Mongoos there
exists any element or quality which acts as a prophylactic. Such
exceptional provisions are not without precedent in the animal economy:
the hornbill feeds with impunity on the deadly fruit of the _Strychnos_;
the milky juice of some species of _Euphorbia_, which is harmless to
oxen, is invariably fatal to the zebra; and the tsetse fly, the pest of
South Africa, whose bite is mortal to the ox, the dog, and the horse, is
harmless to man and the untamed creatures of the forest."[190]
Our own hedgehog possesses the privilege of being unharmed by the venom
of the viper, as is manifest in its frequent contests with it. Mr Slater
has frequently seen combats between these animals, which always
terminated in favour of the hedgehog. The latter seemed perfectly
regardless of the many bites it received on the snout.[191]
To return to Bruce's statements. After describing the little horned
viper of Egypt, the _Cerastes_, and its insidious manner of creeping
towards its victim with its head averted, till within reach, when it
suddenly springs and strikes, he goes on to say: "I saw one of them at
Cairo 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, perpendicularly 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 shewed no
signs of either pain or fear, and we kept him with us full four hours,
without his applying any sort of remedy, or seeming inclined to do so.
"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.
[Illustration: SNAKE-CHARMING.]
"I will not hesitate to aver," he adds, "that I have seen at Cairo (and
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 its tail, has ate it, as one would do a carrot or a stock of celery,
without any seeming repugnance."[192]
A few years earlier than Bruce, Hasselquist, an enthusiastic young
naturalist, and one of the pupils of Linnæus, had visited the East. He
paid much attention to the subject, and records his judgment that there
is no delusion in serpent-charming, but that certain persons do really,
in whatever way they effect it, 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 person 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 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 generally 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 undertake it use many superstitions."
Subsequently we find some details of interest. "Now was the time (July)
to catch all sorts of snakes to be met with in Egypt, the great heats
bringing forth these vermin. I therefore made preparation to get as many
as I could, and at once received four different sorts, which I have
described and preserved in _aqua vitæ_. These were the Common Viper, the
Cerastes of Alpin, the Jaculus, and an Anguis Marinus. They were brought
me by a Psylle, who put me, together with the French consul, Sironcourt,
and all the French nation present, in consternation.
"They gathered about us to see how she handled the most poisonous and
dreadful creatures alive and brisk, without their doing or 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
_Viperæ officinales_, which were not fond of their lodging. They found
means to creep out before the bottle 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
serpents 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 those creatures.
It was impossible to get any information from her, for on this subject
she would not open her lips."
He thus sums up the results of his investigations. "The circumstances
relating to the fascination of serpents in Egypt stated to me, were
principally:--
"1st.--That the art is only known to certain families, who propagate it
to their offspring.
"2d.--The person who knows how to fascinate serpents, never meddles with
other poisonous animals; 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 been told that serpents, fried or boiled, are frequently eaten by
the Arabians, 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."
The blessing of the priest, Hasselquist pronounces correctly enough to
be mere superstition; we may fairly conclude that the eating of the
snakes is also irrelevant,--both of these circumstances being calculated
to increase popular wonder only, and to lead the observers from the true
scent, which probably is the employment of preventive simples.
Hasselquist had been told of a plant with which the charmers anointed
or rubbed themselves before they touched the serpents; but, as no such
plant was produced to him, he regarded it as fabulous. We have seen
reason, however, to conclude that the real key to the mystery lies
there.[193]
The ancients believed that the human spittle was so fatal to serpents
that much of the secret of charming lay in the knowledge of this fact.
Of course this would make Psylli of all men; but there may be this
measure of truth in the supposition, that the natural exudations of a
human body which has been bathed or rubbed with a penetrating
alexipharmic, may be so impregnated with the odour, as to be peculiarly
repellent of the snake. Denham describes a scene of snake-charming in
which the spittle played an important part. A juggler brought him in a
bag two venomous snakes, which he set at liberty, beginning to beat a
little drum. They immediately reared themselves on their tails, moving
in a sort of dance. The juggler played various tricks with them,
sometimes wreathing them round his neck, coiling them in his bosom, or
throwing them among the people. On pointing his finger at their mouth,
they immediately raised themselves in attitude to spring forward and
strike; but after having exasperated them to the utmost, _he had only to
spit in their face_, to make them retreat quite crest-fallen. From his
description these seem to have been of the genus _Naia_, upwards of six
feet long, and very venomous. The fangs, he says, had been extracted;
but still, to guard against all possible injury, the fellow who played
tricks with them had a large roll of cloth wound round the right
arm.[194]
The influence of music on the serpents seems to be universally assumed
as a part of the professional snake-charmer's success. The ancient
Psylli who were employed to prevent the Roman camp from being troubled
with venomous serpents, marched around it, chanting mystic songs.[195]
Johnson describes the very clever snake-catchers of India as pretending
to draw them from their holes by a song, and by playing a plaintive tune
on an instrument somewhat resembling an Irish bagpipe.[196] He says,
indeed, that this is all delusion; but Forbes, in his "Oriental
Memoirs," allows its reality. A learned native of India assured Sir
William Jones that he had frequently seen the most venomous and
malignant snakes leave their holes upon hearing notes from a flute,
which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight.
The Egyptian snake-charmer assumes an air of mystery, strikes the walls
with a short palm-stick, whistles, makes a clucking noise with his
tongue, and says, "I adjure you, by God, if ye be above, or if ye be
below, that ye come forth; I adjure you by the most great Name, if ye be
obedient, come forth, and if ye be disobedient, die, die, die!"[197] The
late Dr W. A. Bromfield, in some extracts from his letters published in
the _Zoologist_,[198] confirms this:--"The chief actor was a
fine-looking man, with a handsome and intelligent, but peculiar cast of
countenance. He carried a stick in his hand, with which, on entering
each apartment, he struck the wall several times, uttering, in a low,
measured tone, a form of exorcism in Arabic; adjuring and commanding the
serpent--which he declared, immediately on the door being thrown open,
was lurking in the walls or ceiling--to come forth. Presently, the
reptile would be seen emerging from some hole or corner, with which
every room, even in the better class of Egyptian houses, abounds; on
which the enchanter would draw the unwilling serpent towards him, with
the point of the stick, and when within reach put it in the bag he
carried about with him for that purpose."
Chateaubriand has drawn a graphic picture of the power of music on the
American Rattlesnake. The serpent happening to enter the encampment of
his party in Canada, a Canadian who could play on the flute, advanced,
by way of diversion, with his magic pipe, against it. On his approach
the haughty reptile curled itself into a spiral line, flattened its
head, inflated its cheeks, contracted its lips, displayed its envenomed
fangs, and its bloody throat; its double tongue glowed like two flames
of fire; its eyes were burning coals; its body, swollen with rage, rose
and fell like the bellows of a forge; its dilated skin assumed a dull
and scaly appearance; and its rattle, which sounded the denunciation of
death, vibrated with extreme velocity. The Canadian now began to play
upon his flute: the serpent started with surprise, and drew back its
head. In proportion as it was struck with the magic effect, its eyes
lost their fierceness, the vibrations of its tail became slower, and the
sound which it emitted gradually became weaker and ceased. The folds of
the fascinated Serpent became less perpendicular upon their spiral line,
expanded by degrees, and sunk one after another upon the ground, forming
concentric circles. The colours recovered their brilliancy on its
quivering skin; and, slightly turning its head, it remained motionless
in the attitude of attention and pleasure. At this moment, the Canadian
advanced a few steps, producing with his flute sweet and simple notes.
The Reptile inclined its variegated neck, opened a passage with its head
through the high grass, and began to creep after the musician, stopping
when he stopped, and following him again as soon as he moved forward. In
this manner, to the astonishment both of Europeans and natives, he was
led out of the camp; and it was unanimously decreed, that the life of a
creature so sensible of the concord of sweet sounds should be
spared.[199]
Some allowance in the colouring of this picture, which must be allowed
to be beautifully painted, may possibly be made to the poetical
imagination of the narrator, for Chateaubriand could not tell a story
without embellishing it _suo more_. We may, however, accept the main
facts, confirmed as they are by the experience of other observers in
other countries.
Mr Gogerly, a missionary of some standing in India observes that some
persons who were incredulous on the subject, after taking the most
careful precautions against any trick or artifice being played, sent a
charmer into the garden to prove his powers;--the man began to play upon
his pipe, and proceeding from one part of the garden to another, for
some minutes stopped at a part of the wall much injured by age, and
intimated that a serpent was within. He then played quicker, and his
notes were louder, when almost immediately a large Cobra di Capello put
forth its hooded head, and the man ran fearlessly to the spot, seized it
by the throat, and drew it forth. He then shewed the poison fangs, and
beat them out; afterwards it was taken to the room where his baskets
were left, and deposited among the rest. The snake-charmer, observes the
same writer, applies his pipe to his mouth, and sends forth a few of his
peculiar notes, and all the serpents stop as though enchanted; they then
turn towards the musician, and approaching him within two feet raise
their heads from the ground, and bending backwards and forwards, keep
time with the tune. When he ceases playing, they drop their heads and
remain quiet on the ground.
The _Penny Magazine_ for April 1833, contains the following very precise
and circumstantial narrative, communicated by a gentleman of high
station at Madras:--"One morning, as I sat at breakfast, I heard a loud
noise and shouting among my palankeen-bearers. On inquiry, I learned
that they had seen a large hooded snake, and were trying to kill it. I
immediately went out, and saw the snake creeping up a very high green
mound, whence it escaped into a hole in an old wall of ancient
fortification; the men were armed with their sticks, which they always
carry in their hands, and had attempted in vain to kill the reptile,
which had eluded their pursuit, and in his hole had coiled himself up
secure, whilst we could see his bright eyes shining. I had often desired
to ascertain the truth of the report, as to the effect of music upon
snakes. I therefore inquired for a snake-catcher. I was told there was
no person of the kind in the village; but after a little inquiry, I
heard there was one in a village distant about three miles. I
accordingly sent for him, keeping a strict watch over the snake, which
never attempted to escape, whilst we, his enemies, were in sight. About
an hour elapsed, when my messenger returned bringing a snake-catcher.
This man wore no covering on his head, nor any on his person, excepting
a small piece of cloth round his loins; he had in his hands two baskets,
one containing tame snakes, the other empty: these and his musical pipe
were the only things he had with him. I made the snake-catcher leave his
two baskets on the ground, at some distance, while he ascended the mound
with his pipe alone. He began to play: at the sound of the music the
snake came gradually and slowly out of his hole. When he was entirely
within reach, the snake-catcher seized him dexterously by the tail and
held him thus at arm's length; whilst the snake, enraged, darted his
head in all directions, but in vain: thus suspended, he has not the
power to round himself, so as to seize hold of his tormentor. He
exhausted himself in vain exertions; when the snake-catcher descended
the bank, dropped him into the empty basket, and closed the lid: he then
began to play, and after a short time, raised the lid of the basket; the
snake darted about wildly, and attempted to escape; the lid was shut
down again quickly, the music always playing. This was repeated two or
three times; and in a very short interval, the lid being raised, the
snake sat on his tail, opened his hood and danced quite as quietly as
the tame snakes in the other basket, nor did he attempt again to escape.
This, having witnessed with my own eyes, I can assert as a fact."
Experienced and skilful as these men are, however, they do not
invariably escape with impunity. Fatal terminations to these exhibitions
of the psyllic art now and then occur, for there are still to be found
"deaf adders, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming
never so wisely." In Madras, a few years ago, a noted serpent-charmer
chanced one morning to get hold of a Cobra of considerable size, which
he got conveyed to his home. He was occupied abroad all day, and had not
time to get the dangerous fangs extracted from the Serpent's mouth. This
at least is the probable solution of the matter. In the evening he
returned to his dwelling, considerably excited with liquor, and began to
exhibit tricks with his snakes to various persons who were around him at
the time. The newly-caught Cobra was brought out with the others, and
the man, spirit-valiant, commenced to handle the stranger like the rest.
But the Cobra darted at his chin, and bit it, making two marks like pin
points. The poor juggler was sobered in an instant. "I am a dead man,"
he exclaimed. The prospect of immediate death made the maintenance of
his professional mysticism a thing of no moment. "Let the creature
alone," said he to those about him, who would have killed the Cobra; "it
may be of service to others who are of my trade. To me it can be of no
more use. Nothing can save me." His professional knowledge was but too
accurate. In two hours he was a corpse! The narrator saw him a short
time after he died. His friends and brother jugglers had gathered around
him, and had him placed on a chair in a sitting position. Seeing the
detriment likely to result to their trade and interests from such a
notion, they vehemently asserted that it was not the envenomed bite
which had killed him. "No, no; he only forgot one little word--one small
portion of the charm." In fact, they declared that he was not dead at
all, but only in a sort of swoon, from which, according to the rules of
the cabalistic art, he would recover in seven days. But the officers of
the barracks, close to which the deceased had lived, interfered in the
matter. They put a guard of one or two men on the house, declaring that
they would allow the body to remain unburied for seven days, but would
not permit any trickery. Of course the poor serpent-charmer never came
to life again. His death, and the manner of it, gave a severe blow, as
has been already hinted, to the art and practice of snake-charming in
Madras.
Roberts also mentions the instance of a man who came to a gentleman's
house to exhibit tame snakes, and on being told that a Cobra, or Hooded
Snake was in a cage in the house, was asked if he could charm it; on his
replying in the affirmative, the Serpent was released from the cage,
and, no doubt, in a state of high irritation. The man began his
incantations, and repeated his charms, but the Snake darted at him,
fastened upon his arm, and before night he was a corpse.
These failures, rare and abnormal as they confessedly are, do not by any
means disprove the reality of snake-charming; they certainly shew that
the men believe in their own powers. It may be, as some Europeans have
maintained, that in India, the exhibitors usually practise upon tame
snakes, from which they have already extracted the fangs, or even
eradicated the poison sacs,--an operation performed without difficulty
by making an incision beneath and behind each eye. Or it may be that the
power of music over these reptiles is ordinarily relied on, and that in
rare instances this fails. I have myself taken fierce and active
lizards, in Jamaica, by a noose of string, while whistling a lively
tune. As soon as the whistling commenced, the lizard would become still
on the trunk or the branch of a tree, and so remain unmoved, with a
sleepy look all the while I was searching up the string, preparing the
noose, and presenting it to him, giving just a backward glance of his
eye, as the noose slipped over his head, the whistling going on
vigorously all the time, of course, till the cord being jerked tight, he
suddenly found himself dangling in the air at the end of a stick, and
began to wriggle and writhe, and scratch and bite furiously.
One thing seems clear from these accidents. The Indian _samp-wallahs_ do
not use any infusion or unguent to stupefy and disarm their snakes, as
do those of Ethiopia. If these men just mentioned had been so protected
they would not have been killed, however rash or pot-valiant they might
have been. Indeed the accounts of Bruce and others of the African
professors of the psyllic art, and the phenomena of the serpents acted
upon, differ greatly from descriptions of parallel exhibitions in India,
and suggest diverse modes of explanation.
A dozen years ago there were a couple of oriental Psylli performing at
the Zoological Gardens. Mr Brodcrip has given a very graphic sketch of
their performance as he saw it in the Reptile House. The two Arabs took
up their position on the floor, the company standing in a semicircle at
a respectful distance.
"The old Arab said something to the young one, who stooped down ... and
took out a large deal-box, drew off the cover, thrust in his hand and
pulled out a large long _Naia haje_ (the Egyptian species of Cobra).
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 eyes 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 perfect command over the animal. All this
time the old Arab stood still, pensively regarding the operation; but
presently he also squatted down, muttering 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 fixing 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 out 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, regarding 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 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 another 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 blood; but he only spat on the
wound and scratched it with his nail which made the blood flow more
freely. Then he brought out more lizards of a most revolting aspect. By
this time the floor of the reptile house, that formed the stage of the
charmers, began to put one in mind of the incantation-scene in _Der
Freischutz_, only that the principal performers looked more like the
Black Huntsman and one of his familiars than Max 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 spectators,
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 tormentors, 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."[200]
This last assumption the narrator subsequently found to be indubitably
true. What is said of the _Cerastes_, however, looks more like the
effect of something detrimental to the snake in the lad's odour, or in
his spittle. Of course no confidence can be placed in their statements,
but it is noteworthy that they both claimed to belong to a race over
whom snakes have no morbific power,--Psylli, in fact, of many
generations.
Dr Davy asserts that in India, however, the poison fangs are _not_
extracted. He tells us that he has himself examined the snakes exhibited
(which are always Cobras) and have found the fangs uninjured. He
attributes the power of the charmers to their agility and courage,
founded on an intimate acquaintance with the habits and disposition of
the reptiles. The learned Doctor acting on this persuasion, says that he
has himself repeatedly irritated these serpents with impunity. They can
be readily appeased when irritated, by the voice and by gentle movements
of the hand in a circle, and by stroking them on the body.
A very curious subject, closely connected with serpent-charming, is the
power of extracting venom from a wound inflicted by reptiles, attributed
to the "snake-stone," which the Hindoos and Cingalese usually carry with
them. Captain Napier thus describes it:--
"These people generally have for sale numbers of _snake-stones_, which
are said to be equally an antidote against the bite of the serpent and
the sting of the scorpion. For the former I have never seen it tried:
and to prove its efficacy with the latter, the samp-wallah generally
carries about in small earthen vessels a number of these animals, one of
which he allows to wound him with his sting. The snake-stone, which is a
dark, shining, smooth pebble, about the size and shape of a French bean,
on being applied to the wound, instantly adheres to it, and by a power
of suction appears to draw out the poison, which is supposed to be
contained in the small bubbles which, on the immersion of the stone into
a glass of water are seen in great numbers to rise to the surface.
"My first idea on beholding the samp-wallah allow himself to be stung by
the scorpion was that the latter had by some means been rendered
harmless. However, not wishing voluntarily to put this to the test by
personal experience, I purchased some of the stones, resolved on the
very first opportunity to try their efficacy. Shortly after this,
happening to be marching up the country with a detachment, we pitched
our camp on some very stony ground, in clearing which one of the English
soldiers happened to be bit [stung] in the hand by a large scorpion. As
soon as I heard of this circumstance, I sent for the sufferer, who
appeared to be in great pain, which he described as a burning sensation
running all the way up his arm to the very shoulder.
"I applied one of the snake-stones to the puncture; it adhered
immediately, and during about eight minutes that it remained on the
patient, he by degrees became easier; the pain diminished, gradually
coming down from the shoulder, until it appeared entirely confined to
the immediate vicinity of the wound. I now removed the stone; on putting
it into a cup of water, numbers of small air-bubbles rose to the
surface, and in a short time the man ceased to suffer any inconvenience
from the accident."[201]
It is scarcely needful to say that the emission of bubbles is a most
ordinary phenomenon, and could have not the slightest connexion with the
alexipharmic power of the stone, whether real or imaginary. Any one may
see exactly the same thing on dropping a bit of new flower-pot, or a
very dry brick into water, or any other substance heavier than the
fluid, which is at the same time dry and porous. It results from the air
which is contained in the pores of the material, which on immersion is
displaced by the heavier water, and rises in oozing bubbles to the
surface.
Sir Emerson Tennent has some observations of much value on these
"stones," as well as on cognate matters, which my readers may like to
see, and with which I close this subject:--
"On one occasion, in March 1854, a friend of mine was riding, with some
other civil officers of the government, along a jungle-path in the
vicinity of Bintenne, when they saw one of two Tamils, who were
approaching them, suddenly dart into the forest and return, holding in
both hands a _cobra di capello_ which he had seized by the head and
tail. He called to his companion for assistance to place it in their
covered basket, but in doing this, he handled it so inexpertly that it
seized him by the finger, and retained its hold for a few seconds, as if
unable to retract its fangs. The blood flowed, and intense pain appeared
to follow almost immediately; but, with all expedition, the friend of
the sufferer undid his waistcloth, and took from it two snake-stones,
each of the size of a small almond, intensely black and highly polished,
though of an extremely light substance. These he applied one to each
wound inflicted by the teeth of the serpent, to which the stones
attached themselves closely, the blood that oozed from the bites being
rapidly imbibed by the porous texture of the article applied. The stones
adhered tenaciously for three or four minutes, the wounded man's
companion in the meanwhile rubbing his arm downwards from the shoulder
towards the fingers. At length the snake-stones dropped off of their own
accord; the suffering appeared to have subsided; he twisted his fingers
till the joints cracked, and went on his way without concern. Whilst
this had been going on, another Indian of the party who had come up
took from his bag a small piece of white wood, which resembled a root,
and passed it gently near the head of the cobra, which the latter
immediately inclined close to the ground; he then lifted the snake
without hesitation, and coiled it into a circle at the bottom of his
basket. The root, by which he professed to be enabled to perform this
operation with safety, he called the _Naya-thalee Kalinga_ (the root of
the snake-plant,) protected by which he professed his ability to
approach any reptile with impunity. In another instance, in 1853, Mr
Lavalliere, the District Judge of Kandy, informed me that he saw a
snake-charmer in the jungle, close by the town, search for a _cobra di
capello_, and, after disturbing it in its retreat, the man tried to
secure it, but, in the attempt, he was bitten in the thigh till blood
trickled from the wound. He instantly applied the _Pamboo-Kaloo_ (or
snake-stone), which adhered closely for about ten minutes, during which
time he passed the root which he held in his hand backwards and forwards
above the stone, till the latter dropped to the ground. He assured Mr
Lavalliere that all danger was then past. That gentleman obtained from
him the snake-stone he had relied on, and saw him repeatedly afterwards
in perfect health. The substances which were used on both these
occasions are now in my possession. The roots employed by the several
parties are not identical. One appears to be a bit of the stem of an
_Aristolochia_; the other is so dry as to render it difficult to
identify it, but it resembles the quadrangular stem of a jungle vine.
Some species of _Aristolochia_, such as the _A. serpentaria_ of North
America, are supposed to act as a specific in the cure of snake-bites;
and the _A. Indica_ is the plant to which the ichneumon is popularly
believed to resort as an antidote when bitten; but it is probable that
the use of any particular plant by the snake-charmers is a pretence, or
rather a delusion, the reptile being overpowered by the resolute action
of the operator, and not by the influence of any secondary appliance,
the confidence inspired by the supposed talisman enabling its possessor
to address himself fearlessly to his task, and thus to effect by
determination and will, what is popularly believed to be the result of
charms and stupefaction."
The writer then alludes to the facts mentioned by Bruce, which I have
before adduced; and proceeds:--
"As to the snake-stone itself, I submitted one, the application of which
I have been describing, to Mr Faraday, and he has communicated to me, as
the result of his analysis, his belief that it is 'a piece of charred
bone which has been filled with blood perhaps several times, and then
carefully charred again. Evidence of this is afforded, as well by the
apertures of cells or tubes on its surface as by the fact that it yields
and breaks under pressure, and exhibits an organic structure within.
When heated slightly, water rises from it, and also a little ammonia;
and, if heated still more highly in the air, the carbon burns away, and
a bulky white ash is left, retaining the shape and size of the 'stone.'
This ash, as is evident from inspection, cannot have belonged to any
vegetable substance, for it is almost entirely composed of phosphate of
lime. Mr Faraday adds that 'if the piece of matter has ever been
employed as a spongy absorbent, it seems hardly fit for that purpose in
its present state; but who can say to what treatment it has been
subjected since it was fit for use, or to what treatment the natives may
submit it when expecting to have occasion to use it?'"
Sir E. Tennent supposes that the animal charcoal may be sufficiently
absorbent to extract the venom from the recent wound together with a
portion of the blood, before it has had time to be carried into the
system. If this be so the process is analogous to that of sucking a
poisoned wound, already referred to.[202]
What the author means by a jungle vine I do not exactly know, but
conjecture that it may be one of the _Bignoniaceæ_, the woody climbing
species of which have in general their stem divided into lobes arranged
in a quadrangular manner. I am not aware that any species of this order
is an antidote to animal poisons, but many have powerful medicinal
properties, and abound in bitter juices. The whitewood of Jamaica
(_Bignonia leucoxylon_) enjoys a reputation as a remedy for the poison
of the Manchineel (_Hippomane mancinella_) which is so virulent that
persons are reported to have been killed by its volatile emanations,
when accidentally sleeping under its shade, and a drop of its juice
falling on the skin burns it like fire, and produces an ulcer difficult
to heal. The value of the _Aristolochia_ has been already referred to;
and on the whole I am disposed to attach more importance to the use of
vegetable specifics by the Ceylonese operators than the learned author
whom I have just quoted. The subject is a highly curious one, and well
worthy of minute investigation by able and unprejudiced men of science,
willing to receive unscientific information and suggestions, in various
parts of the world, particularly in the intertropical regions of both
hemispheres.
[183] Psalm lviii. 4, 5.
[184] Jer. viii. 17.
[185] This is the Tuberose, a liliaceous plant, so commonly cultivated
in our conservatories. It is generally stated to be a native of the East
Indies, but the one spoken of by Tschudi, with a Peruvian name, must
certainly be an indigenous plant of the country.
[186] The genus _Mikania_ of Willdenow is one of the tubuliflorous
_Asteraceæ_. _M. guaco_ Humboldt mentions, under the name of Vijuco del
Guaco, as being highly esteemed in South America as a valuable antidote
against the bite of serpents. "Guaco" and "huaco" are the same word, the
intensity of the aspirate varying among different peoples. The power of
this _Mikania_ is denied in the most positive terms by Hancock, who
suspects that the real Guaco antidote is some kind of _Aristolochia_.
The word "Vijuco" or "Bejuco," in Tropical America, signifies any
climbing plant, and is equivalent to our florist word "creeper."
_Eupatorium ayapana_, belonging to the same order as _Mikania_, is a
valuable repellent of the poison of venomous snakes. For this purpose it
is used in Brazil. A quantity of the bruised leaves, which are to be
frequently changed, is laid on the scarified wound, and some spoonfuls
of the expressed juice are from time to time administered to the
patient, till he is found to be free from the symptoms, especially the
dreadful anxiety which follows the wounds of venomous reptiles. _E.
perfoliatum_ has a very similar action, and _Mikania opifera_ is
employed in the same way.--(_Lindley's Veg. Kingd._, p. 707.) These
facts tend to confirm the accuracy of Tschudi and Humboldt against
Hancock.
[187] _Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela_, vol. i., p. 43.
[188] _Dahomey and the Dahomans._
[189] Several of the _Aristolochieæ_--plants generally having a very
bitter taste, and a strong, pungent, disagreeable smell--are valuable
alexipharmics. There is a plant very common in Jamaica, where it is
called snake-withe, trailing over the stone fences, which I suspect to
be an _Aristolochia_, and perhaps _A. trilobata_; it is employed as a
sudden and potent sudorific, and as an antidote to serpent-bites in
other countries, for in Jamaica there is no venomous reptile. The _A.
anguicida_ of Carthagena is described by Jacquin as fatal to serpents.
He says that the juice of the root chewed and introduced into the mouth
of a serpent so stupefies it that it may be for a long time handled with
impunity: if the reptile is compelled to swallow a few drops, it
perishes in convulsions. The root is also reputed to be an antidote to
serpent-bites. "It is not a little remarkable," observes Dr Lindley,
"that the power of stupefying snakes, ascribed in Carthagena to
_Aristolochia anguicida_, should be also attributed to _A. pallida_,
_longa_, _b{oe}tica_, _sempervirens_ and _rotunda_; which are said to be
the plants with which the Egyptian jugglers stupefy the snakes they play
with."
[190] _Ceylon_, i., 147.
[191] "On the Habits of the Viper in Silesia:" _Zoologist_, p. 829.
[192] _Trav. to the Sources of the Nile, passim._
[193] _Travels in the Levant, passim._
[194] _Discov. in Africa_, ii., p. 292.
[195] _Lucan's Pharsalia._
[196] _Ind. Field Sports._
[197] _Mod. Egyptians._
[198] _Zool._, 6400.
[199] _Beauties of Christianity._
[200] _Note-book of a Naturalist_, 202.
[201] Napier's _Scenes and Sports_, vol. ii., p. 227.
[202] Tennent's _Ceylon_.
X.
BEAUTY.
Very much of the delight with which we pursue natural history is surely
due to the almost constant recognition of the beautiful. I do not know
that I could say with the poet,--
"A thing of beauty is a joy _for ever_;"
but certainly it is a joy as long as it endures; and the naturalist
finds an endless recurrence of things of beauty. Birds, insects, shells,
zoophytes, flowers, sea-weeds, are all redundant of beauty; and all the
classes of natural objects, though not in an equal degree, nor
manifestly in every individual object, yet possess it as a prominent
element. Indeed, from the profusion with which loveliness is sown
broadcast over the works of God, I have often thought, though it is not
directly revealed, that a sense of the beautiful and a complacency in
it, altogether independent of fitness for certain ends, or the uses
which may be subserved, is an attribute of the Holy One Himself, and
that our perception of it is the reflection of His--a part of that image
of God in which man was created, and which sin has not wholly
obliterated. I know that God may have clothed His works with beauty for
other admiring eyes than man's; and that it is probable that the holy
angels may be far more conversant with creation than we are with all our
researches,--that the ten thousand times ten thousand flowers which are
"born to blush unseen" by _man_, may be seen and admired by "ten
thousand times ten thousand" angels,[203] and thus the tribute of praise
for their perfection may be ever ascending before Him whose hands made
them for His glory. We may allow this; and yet with reverence presume
that His own pure eyes look upon the lilies' array with a delight in
their mere loveliness, infinitely greater than that which men, or even
angels, take in it, seeing it is written,--"for thy pleasure they are,
and were created."
I remember being struck, and somewhat awed, too, with a thought of this
kind, once, when, pushing my way through a very dense and tangled
thicket in a lone and lofty mountain region of Jamaica, sufficiently
remote from the dwellings of man to render it probable that no civilized
human foot had penetrated thither before. I suddenly came upon a most
magnificent terrestrial orchid in full blossom. It was _Phajus
Tankervilliæ_,--a noble plant, which from the midst of broad leaves
growing out of a mass of green bulbs, had thrown up its stout
blossom-stems to the height of a yard or more, crowned with the
pyramidal spike of lily-like flowers, whose expanding petals of pure
white on one side and golden brown on the other, and trumpet-lip of
gorgeous purple seemed, to my ravished gaze, the very perfection of
beauty. For ages, I thought, that beauteous flower had been growing in
that wild and unvisited spot, every season "filling the air around with
beauty," and had in all probability never met a single human gaze
before. Had, then, all that divinely-formed loveliness been mere waste
for those generations? I asked myself; and I immediately replied, No:
the eye of God himself hath rested on it with satisfaction, and the Lord
hath taken pleasure in this work of His hands.
I shall not make this chapter an essay on the sublime and beautiful, nor
seek to analyse the sense of beauty. It is enough that it is an appetite
of our being, and that most abundantly in nature, on every side, there
is the material of its gratification. So abundantly, indeed, that it
were easy to expand the few pages which I propose to devote to the
subject into a volume, or a dozen volumes, and yet leave untouched vast
treasures of the beautiful in natural history. I must content myself and
my readers with the selection of a few of the more prominent objects in
which this sense is gratified, and with a discrimination of two or three
distinct phases or conditions of existence which contribute, each in its
measure, to give delight to the eyes.
[Illustration: ANTELOPES.]
Among Quadrupeds, there is perhaps less of beauty, strictly considered,
than in most other classes of animals. Elegance of form, however, which
is one phase of it, is seen in the lithe and active squirrel, the pretty
petaurist, and many other of the smaller beasties, and is found in
perfection in the deer and antelopes. Who that has seen a pet fawn
coming to be caressed by a fair girl, but must have had his sense of the
beautiful gratified? Mark the freedom and grace of every motion! See
how it stretches out its pretty meek face and taper neck towards the
hand; its extreme timidity causing its whole body and every limb to
start on the slightest stir from the beholders, while on the least
approach it bounds away in the exuberant playfulness of its little
heart, then stops, and turns, and gazes, and stretches out its neck
again! See when it trots or walks, how high it lifts its little slender
feet, bending its agile limbs as if motion itself were a pleasure! See,
as it stands, with one fore-foot bent up, the hoof nearly touching the
belly; the long graceful ears moving this way and that, now thrown
forwards, now backwards, now erected, to catch the slightest
sound,--what a picture of fairy grace it is! There is beauty, too, in
the soft, full liquid eye of these animals,--the "bright, black eye" of
the "dear gazelle," which in the East is the very ideal of female
loveliness. Its melting gaze seems full of tenderness, so that we cannot
look without loving it.
Nor is beauty of colour wholly wanting. How rich is the tawny fur of the
tiger, dashed with its black streaks! And the brighter yellow of the
leopard and the jaguar, studded all over with rosettes of black spots!
We forget the ferocity of the savage in its beautifully-painted coat.
The zebra, too,--with the fine contrast of those bands of richest sable
on the cream-coloured ground, now bold and broad, as on the rounded
body, now running in fine parallel but irregularly-waved lines, as on
the face,--is a beautiful quadruped; and a herd of them galloping
wantonly over a South African plain, must be a sight worth seeing
indeed.
When we come to Birds, however, beauty is not the exception, but the
rule. The form of a bird is almost always graceful; the rounded
swellings and undulations of outline, and the smoothness of the plumage
give pleasure to the eye, even when there is no attractiveness of hue.
One has almost a difficulty in naming an inelegant bird. But when, as in
a thousand instances, brilliancy of colouring is combined with elegance
of shape and smoothness of plumage, we must be charmed. Is not our own
little goldfinch, is not the pert chaffinch that comes up to our very
feet for a grain or a crumb, a pretty object? But the tropical
birds,--we must look at them if we wish to know what nature can do in
the way of adornment. We should go to the flats on the embouchure of the
Amazon, and see the rosy spoonbills, in their delicate carnation dress,
set off by the lustrous crimson of their shoulders and breast-tufts,
feeding by hundreds on the green mud, or watch the gorgeous ibises, all
clad in glowing scarlet with black-tipped wings, when, in serried ranks,
a mile in length, like the vermillion cloud of morning, they come to
their breeding-place,--a truly magnificent sight.[204]
The first of the Parrot tribe that I ever had an opportunity of seeing
in its native freedom was the beautiful Parrakeet of the Southern
States. Eighty or a hundred birds in one compact flock passed me flying
low, and all nearly on the same plane; and, as they swept by, screaming
as they went, I fancied that they looked like an immense shawl of green
satin, on which an irregular pattern was worked in scarlet and gold and
azure. The sun's rays were brilliantly reflected from the gorgeous
surface, which rapidly sped past like a splendid vision.
The Cock of the Rock is a fine South American bird of the richest orange
colour, crowned with a double crest of feathers edged with purple. Mr
Wallace describes his search for it on the Rio Negro, and his admiration
of its beauty. Some time he sought in vain, for it is a rare bird, till
the old Indian who was his guide suddenly caught him by the arm, and,
pointing to a dense thicket, whispered in a low tone, "Gallo!" Peering
through the foliage, the naturalist caught a glimpse of the magnificent
bird, sitting amidst the gloom, and shining out like a mass of brilliant
flame. As it is easily alarmed and very wary, it required some following
and perseverance before he shot it. One of his Indians descended into
the deep rocky glen into which it fell, and brought it to him. "I was
lost," he says, "in admiration of the dazzling beauty of its soft downy
feathers; not a spot of blood was visible, not a feather was ruffled,
and the soft, warm, flexible body set off the fresh swelling plumage in
a manner which no stuffed specimen can approach."[205]
There is something exquisitely pleasing to the eye in the delicate
painting of the soft plumage in most of the Goatsuckers and their
allies. Entirely destitute of brilliant hues as they are, the
combinations of warm browns, and cool greys, interchanged with black and
white, and the manner in which these are softened, and blended, and
minutely pencilled, produce an effect that is peculiarly charming.
In the Trogons of the tropical regions we see elegance of form combined
with the most gorgeous colouring. Green and gold, crimson, scarlet,
orange, and black, are the hues of these birds, which hide themselves in
the deep dark recesses of the Amazonian and Indian forests. That species
called the Resplendent is the noblest of the race, whose magnificence
was so well appreciated by the ancient Mexican emperors, that none but
members of the royal family were permitted to adorn themselves with its
flowing plumes. The whole upper parts of this bird, its fine coronal
crest of erectile plumes, its shoulder-hackles, or long lance-shaped
feathers, that droop over the sides, and the elongated tail-coverts
which hang down beyond the tail to a length of three feet or more,
curving elegantly under the bird, as it sits on a branch, are of the
richest golden green, shining with a satiny radiance. The under parts
are of a splendid scarlet, and the tail feathers are white, with broad
black bars.
More enchanting than mere colour, however rich and glowing this may be,
is the fine metallic reflection which we see on the plumage of many
tropical birds. The Rifle-bird of Australia might be seen sitting on a
tree, and be passed by with contempt as a mere crow, while the eye was
attracted to a more gaily-hued parrot by its side. But viewed close at
hand, in the full blaze of the sun, the darker-plumaged bird is seen to
exceed the other by far, in gorgeous glory, and to be not unworthy of
the specific title of _Paradiseus_, by which it is known to naturalists.
The body generally is of a deep velvet black, but it reflects a purple
flush on the upper parts, and the feathers of the under parts are edged
with olive-green. The crown of the head, and the whole throat, are
clothed with scale-like feathers of the brightest emerald-green, which
blaze with a gemmeous lustre in certain lights, and make the most vivid
contrast with the velvet of the body. The tail displays its two middle
feathers of the same lustrous green, while the bordering ones are deep
black.
The vast and little-known island of Papua contains some specimens of the
feathered race of surpassing glory. The _Epimachi_, or Plume-birds, take
a prominent place in this category. They are remarkable for the erectile
scale-like feathers of the sides and shoulders, which form large
fan-shaped tufts, standing out from the body in a very striking manner.
Speaking of the superb Epimachus, Sonnerat, its describer, thus
writes:--"As if to add to the singularity of this bird, nature has
placed above and below its wings feathers of an extraordinary form, and
such as one does not see in other birds; she seems, moreover, to have
pleased herself in painting this being, already so singular, with her
most brilliant colours. The head, the neck, and the belly are glittering
green; the feathers which cover these parts possess the lustre and
softness of velvet to the eye and touch; the back is changeable violet;
the wings are of the same colour, and appear, according to the lights in
which they are held, blue, violet, or deep black; always, however,
imitating velvet. The tail is composed of twelve feathers, the two
middle feathers are the longest, and the lateral feathers gradually
diminish; it is violet, or changeable blue above, and black beneath. The
feathers which compose it are as wide in proportion as they are long,
and shine above and below with the brilliancy of polished metal.
"Above the wings the scapularies are very long and singularly formed;
their points being very short on one side, and very long on the other.
These feathers are of the colour of polished steel, changing into blue,
terminated by a large spot of brilliant green, and forming a species of
tuft or appendage at the margin of the wings.
"Below the wings spring long curved feathers, directed upwards; these
are black on the inside, and brilliant green on the outside. The bill
and feet are black."[206]
The same author, in referring to the brilliant metallic hues of this and
other birds, takes occasion to notice the iridescent effect which is
produced by the different angle at which light falls on the feathers.
The emerald-green, for instance, will often fling out rays of its two
constituent primary colours, at one time being blue-green, at another
gold-green, while in certain lights all colour vanishes, and a
velvet-black is presented to the eye. The ruby feathers of several birds
become orange under certain lights, and darken to a crimson-black at
other times.
[Illustration: MOURNING THE DEAD CUCKOO.]
This change of hue is analogous to the well-known iridescent
changeableness of the nacre which lines various shells, and is owing to
the structure of its surface reflecting the light in different rays,
according to the angle at which it falls upon the feathers.
Another species, a native of the same teeming region, the Twelve-thread
Epimachus, glows, with equal lustre, in the richest violet and emerald,
but somewhat diversely arranged. The long, elegant depending tail is
here reduced to ordinary dimensions, but, as if to compensate for this
inferiority, the Twelve-thread is adorned with an expanding dress of the
purest snowy white, composed of long silky plumes that spring from
behind and below the wings, so soft and so loosely webbed as to wave
gracefully in the slightest breeze. From these tufts project long and
very slender shafts, unwebbed, and as fine as threads, curling
elegantly, six on each side.
The little Sun-birds of India and Africa, and the still tinier
Humming-birds of the New World are conspicuous for the metallic radiance
of their plumage. Take for an example of the former the Fire-tailed
Sun-bird of Nepâl. The crown and forehead are brilliant steel-blue,
while the neck, the back, and the rump are of the richest scarlet,
diversified by a broad patch of bright yellow across the middle of the
back. The central feathers of the tail are lengthened, and are bright
scarlet, while the lateral feathers are edged with the same rich hue on
brown. The breast is golden yellow or orange, flushed with crimson in
the centre, and the rest of the inferior parts are olive-green. Most of
those gorgeous colours have a silky or metallic lustre, and blaze out
under the tropical sunlight with amazing brightness.
Exquisite ornaments are these to an Indian garden, where they delight in
the flowering plants and shrubs. They creep to and fro about the stalks
and twigs, clinging by their little purple feet, and rifling the tubular
corollas of the honeyed blossoms, whence doubtless they gather many
minute insects, licked up with the nectar, by the aid of their curiously
pencilled tongue.
For that peculiar charm which resides in flashing light combined with
the most brilliant colours, the lustre of precious stones, there are no
birds, no creatures, that can compare with the Humming-birds. Confined
exclusively to America,--whence we have already gathered between three
and four hundred distinct species, and more are being continually
discovered,--these lovely little winged gems were to the Mexican and
Peruvian Indians the very quintessence of beauty. By these simple people
they were called by various names signifying "the rays of the sun," "the
tresses of the day-star," and the like. Their glittering scale-like
plumage was employed to make, at the cost of immense time, patience, and
labour, the radiant mantles in which the emperors and highest nobles
appeared on state occasions, as well as to form by a sort of mosaic,
those embroidered pictures which so attracted the admiration of the
Spanish conquerors. The Mexican priests adopted the tiny birds into
their mythology: they taught that the souls of those warriors who died
in defence of the gods, were conducted by Toyamiqui, the wife of the
god of war, straight to the mansion of the sun, and there transformed
into humming-birds.
In the gorgeous forest glooms of the mountainous parts of Jamaica, and
especially in the sunny glades which here and there break their
uniformity, where the ever-verdant foliage rises upon all sides of the
open space like a wall, covered with the most elegant and fragrant
flowers, I have been charmed by the familiar fearlessness and lustrous
splendour of these little creatures. Here sitting down on a prostrate
log in the shadow, I have watched them sipping all around, flitting to
and fro, coming and going, every moment disappearing in the sombre
shade, or suddenly flashing out, with a whirr like that of a
spinning-wheel, into the bright sunshine. Bold and unsuspecting, they
might be seen exploring bush after bush, and coming, while I remained
motionless, even within arm's length of me, busily rifling all the
blossoms in rapid succession, regularly quartering the surface of some
favourite shrub, so as to lose none, and of course, in their zeal,
frequently probing the same flower again and again. Sometimes it would
be the Mango, suspending himself on whirring pinions in front of the
flowers, his broadly-expanded tail-feathers of the richest violet, his
body plumage all green and gold, and his cheeks and throat blazing, in
the changing light, with the radiance now of the ruby, now of the
amethyst, now of the sapphire, and now becoming for an instant the most
intense black. But much more commonly on these occasions was I visited
by the elegant Long-tail, whose slender form, black velvet crest,
emerald bosom, and long tail-plumes, distinguish it as one of the
_principes_ of this patrician race. This lovely little gem would be
hovering about, half-a-dozen visible at the same moment, threading the
projecting branches, now probing here, now there, one moment above a
flower and bending down to it, the next hanging below it, and thrusting
up its crimson beak to kiss its nectar-tube from beneath, the cloudy
wings on each side vibrating with a noise like that of a factory wheel,
and its entire throat, breast and belly clothed in scaly plumage of the
richest green, contrasted finely with the velvety black of all beside.
This scaly plumage would flash brilliantly back the sun's light, like a
noble emerald in the crown of a king; then, by the slightest possible
turn of the bird, it would become black, all the light being absorbed;
then, on another movement, it would seem a dark rich olive, and in an
instant flame forth again with emerald effulgence, over which olive and
black clouds were momentarily passing and repassing.
The phenomenon of this changing lustre is worthy of more careful
attention than it has received. In such Humming-birds as I have
examined,--and possibly it may be a general rule,--the iridescence of
those portions of the plumage that are changeable is splendid in the
ratio of the acuteness of the angle formed by the incident ray and the
reflected one. Thus the scaly plumage of the neck of the Mango appears
to advantage in a room with a single window, only when the beholder
stands with his back to the light, and has the bird before him and
facing him. Then the perpendicular band down the throat and breast,
which seems composed of the richest black velvet, is bounded on each
side by a broad band of glowing crimson, mingled with violet. It is not
the _entire_ plumage of even a Humming-bird that displays these
refulgent gleams: some of the brilliant hues are permanent, not
changeable colours; such as the golden greens which adorn the back and
wing-coverts in so many species; in which the colour is subject to
little change, and the only effect produced by the alteration of the
angle of the light is the transforming the tips of the feathers into the
appearance of burnished gold.
Wilson[207] has remarked that the plumage of the Indigo finch
(_Fringilla cyanea_) in certain lights appears of a rich sky-blue and in
others of a vivid verdigris green, so that the same bird, in passing
from one place to another before your eyes, seems to undergo a total
change of colour. When the rays of light so fall on the plumage that the
angle of the incident and reflected ray is acute, the colour is green,
when obtuse, blue. I have myself noticed exactly the same thing in the
brilliant changeable colour of insects,--as, for instance, the
_Cicindelæ_ of America, and the Emerald Virgin Dragonfly (_Agrion
Virginica_.)
To return, however, to our Humming-birds, of which my readers will like
to have one or two more described,--_la crême de la crême_, the very
_élite_ of this lovely little fairy population. If we were to cross the
Atlantic to Brazil, track up the mighty Amazon some thirty days' sail,
and a distance of a thousand miles, we should come to the mouth of the
Rio Negro, where a remarkable change in the appearance of the water
indicates a totally different region. Instead of the muddy water of the
Amazon, resembling pea-soup, that of the Negro is intensely dark, but
clear and limpid, every ripple sparkling like crystal. The land becomes
high, and the river, some four miles wide, passes between lofty cliffs,
crowned with the rich green walls of the primeval forest. The country is
far more attractive than that on the Amazon; instead of a dead level,
swampy and intersected by sluggish _igaripés_, or shallow ponds,
overhung by impenetrably tangled thickets, and full of venomous flies,
here are gentle hills, and tiny brooks of sparkling water, and a
comparatively open forest, with bright clear glades in which the
traveller may recline without persecution from the flies,--these pests
being unknown on the "black waters." The ground is covered by evergreens
of different species and exquisite forms, and many kinds of elegant
ferns are growing in the valleys. There are few lianes or spinous briers
stretching from tree to tree, obstructing free passage, but a thousand
lesser vines drape the low tree tops with myriads of flowers, new and
attractive to the visitor. Everywhere the forest is intersected by
paths, some made by the inhabitants in their frequent rambles, others by
wild animals that come to the water to drink; and along these the eager
naturalist can readily pass to the feeding trees of many beautiful and
peculiar birds.
Here are wont to haunt many varieties of the richly-hued trogons,
unknown to the lower regions; and at any hour their plaintive note may
be heard at intervals, as they sit moodily, singly or in pairs, on the
branches, with the long tail outspread and drooping, watching for
passing insects. Cuckoos of several kinds, their plumage glancing red in
the subdued light, flit noiselessly through the woods, searching for
caterpillars. Purple jays, in large flocks, alight on some berry-bearing
tree, chattering and gesticulating, but shy and alert,--ready to start
at the snapping of a twig. Motmots and chatterers in gayest
hues,--scarlet, violet and blue,--are abundant. Goatsuckers, in
exquisitely-blended and pencilled tones of colour, start from some shady
glen where they are dozing away the day hours, and, flying a short
distance on soft winnowing pinions, rest again, and seem to fall asleep
in an instant. Showy manikins and tanagers of the brightest tints are
flaunting in every bush: pigeons and doves of soberer hues are cooing
their gentle complainings in the taller trees; and guans and curassows
are marching with stately pace in the paths, picking here and there some
delicate morsel; or running with loud harsh cry, with outstretched neck
and rapid stride, as they detect approaching danger.[208]
Still, conspicuous above all are the Humming-birds, which, revelling in
this region of the sun, are buzzing around the blossoming shrubs like
insects. And pre-eminent among these is the Fiery Topaz, a name that
attempts to express what neither title, nor description, nor coloured
figure can adequately express,--its gemmeous magnificence and lustre.
One of the first ornithologists of the age, the Prince of Canino, has
assigned to the species the honour of being "_inter Trochilides
pulcherrimus_." Description, however, I must give, for want of anything
better, since, even if I possessed a living specimen, I could not
exhibit its living radiance to all my readers: therefore, pray pay
attention to the details, and imagine. The general hue of this imperial
atom is a blazing scarlet, in fine contrast with which the head and
lower part of the throat are deep velvet-black. The gorget of the throat
is emerald green, with a cloud of delicate crimson in the centre. The
lower part of the back, the rump and the upper tail-coverts are of that
beautiful bronzed green which changes to orange gold, so frequently seen
in this tribe; while the wing-quills and tail are purplish black, except
the middle pair of feathers in the latter, which are very slender,
project to a great length, and cross each other; these are green with a
purple gloss.
Among the hundreds of species of this very lovely tribe that swarm in
the intertropical regions of South America, I will select one more for
its surpassing beauty. It is the Bar-tailed Comet. We must look for it
in the temperate and equable valley of the Desaguedero, which leads out
of Lake Titiçaça, the largest sheet of water on the South American
continent, and famous in Peruvian tradition, as the scene where Mango
Capac and Mama Ocollo surprised the barbarous aborigines by their first
appearance. On one of the charming islets of this quiet lake, the two
august strangers were seen, clothed in garments; and, declaring that
they were the children of the sun long prophesied of, proceeded to teach
their simple subjects the arts of civilisation, and to establish a
regular government. We must search for our tiny Comet, too, in the
cultivated plains that surround the Cerro of Potosi, that singular cone
sixteen thousand feet in height, which is wholly composed of silver, and
which is estimated to have yielded, during the three hundred years that
have elapsed since the Indian exposed the solid silver, when he
accidentally tore up a shrub by the roots,--the sum of two hundred
millions of pounds sterling. The districts around, and specially the
environs of the town of Chuquisaca, are adorned with a profusion of
gardens and orchards, in which many European trees and flowers grow, as
well as those of the tropics, the climate possessing the charms of many
regions. In the shrubberies of the city, and in the gardens of the
Indian cottages, as well as the slopes of the surrounding mountains,
where the native groves and forests grow undisturbed, the brilliant
Bar-tail may be seen during the summer months; but, as soon as the
chilling winds of April tell of coming winter, the charming visitor
becomes scarce, and flitting northward finds in the forests of Lower
Peru the mild and balmy air which he loves. When the trees are in
blossom, and particularly the apple-trees, which have been introduced
from Europe, and are largely cultivated in orchards, the males may be
seen shooting in and out among the foliage, like glowing coals of fire,
chasing each other with shrill chirpings, and with surprising
perseverance and acrimony. The fields of maize, and pulse, and other
leguminous plants which are cultivated in the plains, receive a fair
share of his attention; and the nopâleries, or cactus-gardens, where the
cochineal insect is reared for those most valuable crimson and scarlet
dyes, which far outshine the vaunted productions of ancient Tyre. The
blossom of the nopâl is itself one of the most splendid of flowers. It
begins to open as the sun declines, and is in full expanse throughout
the night, shedding a delicious fragrance, and offering its brimming
goblet, filled with nectareous juice, to thousands of moths, and other
crepuscular and nocturnal insects. When the moon is at the full in those
cloudless nights whose loveliness is known only in the tropics, the
broad blossom is seen as a circular disk nearly a foot in diameter, very
full of petals, of which the outer series are of a yellowish hue,
gradually paling to the centre, where they shine in the purest white.
The numerous recurving stamens surround the style which rises in the
midst like a polished shaft, the whole glowing in its silvery beauty
under the moonbeams, from the dark and matted foliage, and diffusing its
delicious clove-like fragrance so profusely that the air is loaded with
it for furlongs round.
Other species of Cactus and Cereus, some with yellow, and some with
pink, and some with rich crimson blossoms,--the pride of our
conservatories,--sprawl profusely in these gardens; and here the
Bar-tail flaunts all day long sipping the nectar, and picking up myriads
of minute insects which the blossoms attract, and which lodge in the
honeyed recesses.
But it is time that the reader should know what sort of a bird this
Bar-tailed Comet is. Attend, then, while I describe his ball-dress, more
lustrous than any fair lady ever wore at Almack's. The head, neck, upper
part of the back, and a considerable portion of the under surface, are
light green, with reflections of burnished gold on the cheeks and
forehead. The lower back is of a deep crimson. The throat flames like an
emerald. The tail is the chief feature, the feathers being broad, and
greatly lengthened, in regular graduation from the central ones to the
outmost pair, which are double the length of the entire bird besides.
The form of the tail is widely forked, its outline having a double
curve, somewhat lyre-shaped. The tail-coverts are ruddy brown; and the
feathers themselves are of the richest and most glowing fire-colour,
incomparably lustrous; each feather being broadly tipped with velvety
black. The graduation of the feathers throws these terminal black tips
to a considerable distance from each other, and their alternation with
the intermediate spaces of the fiery glow has an inconceivably charming
effect, as the bird makes its rapid evolutions through the air, and
whisks about among the flowers, with a velocity which the eye of the
beholder can scarcely follow. It is very fond of certain long
trumpet-shaped pendent blossoms, into which it penetrates so far, that
nothing of it can be seen except the tips of its radiant forked tail
projecting from the tube.
Another family of birds that is conspicuous for gorgeous beauty is that
of the Pheasants. Our own familiar species, which is said to have been
brought long ages ago from the banks of the Phasis in Colchis, by Jason
in the Argo,--
"Argivâ primum sum transportata carinâ,"[209]--
is a very splendid bird, and is well painted in a few lines by
Pope;--who speaks of his
"Glossy varying dyes,
His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes;
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold."[210]
But besides this, there are Indian and Chinese species which excel it in
glory. There are the richly-pencilled Gold and Silver Pheasants, and the
noble Reeves' and Amherst Pheasants, with their extraordinary
long-barred tail plumes. The last named is a bird of unusual
magnificence.
Then there is the splendid Fire-back of Sumatra and Java, which is
adorned with a crest of slender stalked feathers, each expanding into a
disk with spreading barbs. The head, neck, breast, and belly of this
rare bird are of deep steel-blue, very lustrous, the lower part of the
back fiery orange-red or flame-colour, varying in intensity according to
the incidence of the light, and passing like a zone of fire round the
body, though less brilliant on the abdomen; the rump and tail-coverts
broad and truncate, bluish-green, each feather tipped by a paler bar.
The tail is erect and arched, somewhat like that of the common cock,
its middle feathers are pure white, and all the rest black, with green
reflections. The legs and feet, which are scarlet, and the skin of the
face, purple, complete the toilet of this magnificent oriental.
What shall we say to the Argus Pheasant, the bird of Malacca with the
magnificent pinions? How fine a sight must it be to see this noble fowl
displaying his coxcombery in the presence of his admiring hens,
strutting to and fro with his long tail feathers spread and erected, and
his broad wings expanded and scraping the ground far on each side! The
colours, it is true, are sober browns, varied with black and white; but
how exquisitely are these arranged! Perhaps no brilliancy of tint would
more charm the eye than the row of ocellated spots,--each a dark
circular disk surrounded by concentric circles,--that runs along the
centre of each of the enormously-developed secondary wing-quills.
To come back to colour and metallic refulgence. We must not overlook the
Monâl, or Scaly Impeyan of the Himalaya chain. This fowl, which is
little less than a turkey, looks as if clothed in scale armour of
iridescent metal, of which the specific hues can scarcely be indicated,
so changeable are they; green, steel-blue, crimson, purple, and
golden-bronze,--all of the utmost intensity of colour, and of dazzling
refulgence, adorn this bird, set off by a broad square patch of pure
white in the middle of the back, while the crown of the head carries a
drooping crest of naked-shafted, broad-tipped, green feathers. This
splendid fowl is as hardy as the turkey or pheasant, and will probably
before long be domesticated in British preserves, to which it would be a
noble addition, being perhaps exceeded by nothing in nature for
refulgence.
In the same regions are found the Polyplectrons, or Pheasant Peacocks,
birds of the same family. Look at one of these in detail, the Crested
Polyplectron of the Sunda Isles. It much resembles a peacock in contour,
the head and neck black, with steely reflections, relieved by a long
stripe of white arching over each eye, and a broad patch of the same on
the ears. The forehead and crown carry a crest of tall feathers capable
of erection, and making a fine ornament. The whole under parts are
velvet black; the back and rump warm brown, with paler wavy bands and
lines. The coverts and secondary feathers of the wings are of the
richest blue, each feather tipped with velvety black. But the tail is
the grand display. It is a true tail, not a train of superincumbent
feathers as in the peacock, the quill-feathers being of great length and
breadth, and the whole capable of being widely expanded into an enormous
rounded fan. The individual feathers are brown, pencilled and sprinkled
with pale buff,--a pretty ground, on each of which is painted two large
oval eye-spots of the most brilliant metallic blue or green, according
to the light, contained within encircling double rings of black and
white. These refulgent eyes are so set that they constitute two curved
bands placed at some distance apart, running across the tail, and when
this organ is expanded they impart to it a most regal appearance.
Last, but not least, in this distinguished tribe, there is the familiar
Peacock, a proverb of splendour in raiment from the remote antiquity of
Aristophanes and Aristotle to Mr Hollingshead, who lashes the sumptuary
tendencies of our modern ladies under the title of "Peacockism."[211]
The true Peacock, however, the genuine bird, may at least plead that no
milliners' bills of £3000 are ever proved against him in Bankruptcy
Courts.
I am not going to be so impertinent as to describe in detail the plumage
of a bird so well known as the Peacock. Who does not know his empurpled
neck so elegantly bridled, his aigrette of four-and-twenty
battledore-feathers, his pencilled body-clothing, and, above all, his
grand erectile train with its rows of eyelets? Who has not admired the
lustre and beauty of those eyelets,--the kidney-like nucleus of deepest
purple, the surrounding band of green, widening in front and filling the
notch of the pupil, the broad circle of brown, and the narrow black ring
edged with chestnut, and then the decomposed barbs of the feather,
gilded green, all presenting the effulgence of burnished metal, or
rather the glitter and glow of precious gems, flashing in the varying
light? One can hardly imagine the splendour of the scene described by
Colonel Williamson, as seen by him in the Jungleterry District in India,
when, being engaged shooting these beautiful fowl, he estimates that not
fewer than twelve or fifteen hundred Peafowl of various sizes were
within sight of him for nearly an hour. "Whole woods were covered with
their beautiful plumage, to which the rising sun imparted additional
brilliancy. Small patches of plain among the long grass, most of them
cultivated, and with mustard then in bloom, which induced the birds to
feed, increased the beauty of the scene."
In the preceding volume I have spoken of the gorgeous beauty of the
Birds of Paradise, and have quoted the description given by Lesson of
his rapt feelings when, on first seeing a specimen in the forests of
Papua, he could not shoot from emotion. A chapter on animal beauty
cannot pass over this magnificent family, though to my own taste there
is something in the refulgent radiance of the Humming-birds and
Pheasants which is superior to anything seen in the Paradise-birds. The
latter, or some of them at least, give me the idea of being
over-dressed, particularly that one called the Superb, whose singular
forked gorget and shoulder-cape, gorgeous as these adornments are, with
their lustrous violet and green flushes, are somewhat inelegant in form.
Yet some of them are softly beautiful;--
"So richly deck'd in variegated down,
Green, sable, shining yellow, shading brown,
Tints softly with each other blended,
Hues doubtfully begun and ended;
Or intershooting, and to sight
Lost and recover'd, as the rays of light
Glance in the conscious plumes touch'd here and there.
* * * * *
"This the Sun's Bird, whom Glendoveers might own,
As no unworthy partner in their flight
Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway
Of nether air's rude billows is unknown:
Whom sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they
Through India's spicy regions wing their way,
Might bow to as their lord."[212]
[Illustration: PEACOCK-SHOOTING.]
The Emerald Paradise, the best known of the family, seems to have been
in the poet's eye; and certainly the combination of form and colour in
this species is very charming. The rich chocolate of the upper parts,
and the delicate lemon-yellow of the neck, contrast well with the
gemmeous green lustre of the front, when the velvety plumage flashes and
gleams in the sunlight. And the numerous soft floating plumes that arch
out from the flanks to a great distance on all sides are exquisite in
loveliness. "Even in the absolute quiet of a stuffed skin under a glass
case," as Mr Wood remarks, "these plumes are full of astonishing beauty,
their translucent golden-white vanelets producing a most superb effect
as they cross and recross each other, forming every imaginable shade of
white, gold and orange, and then deepening towards their extremities
into a soft purplish red."
Mr G. Bennett, who saw a living specimen in an aviary at Macao,
describes these long, elegant, loose-barbed plumes as occupying a good
deal of the bird's own attention and care. "One of the best
opportunities of seeing this splendid bird in all its beauty of action
as well as display of plumage, is early in the morning, when he makes
his toilet: the beautiful sub-alar plumage is then thrown out and
cleaned from any spot that may sully its purity, by being passed gently
through the bill; the short chocolate wings are extended to the utmost,
and he keeps them in a steady flapping motion as if in imitation of
their use in flight, at the same time raising up the delicate long
feathers over the back, which are spread in a chaste and elegant manner,
floating like films in the ambient air. In this position the bird would
remain for a short time, seemingly proud of its heavenly beauty, and in
raptures of delight with its most enchanting self; it would then assume
various attitudes, so as to regard its plumage in every direction."[213]
Passing over all other classes of animate existence, I shall say a few
words on the surpassing loveliness which is displayed by many of the
Insect tribes. The nursery prejudice, that these creatures are worthy
only to be trodden under foot, as things repulsive and disgusting, is
certainly decaying, though it retains its hold still in some minds. A
glance through an entomological cabinet would prove how unjust are such
notions. If brilliant hues, polished surface, sculptured chasings,
graceful forms, and lively motions can command admiration, these are
displayed by Insects to a degree which we should in vain look for in any
other class of creatures. We need not speak of simple colours; these
occur in profusion, of all hues, of all shades of intensity, and of the
very highest degrees of brightness; combined too, in the most elegant
manner, and very frequently, particularly in the _Lepidoptera_,
presenting that peculiar charm which results from the association of
tints that are complemental to each other.
Words are always felt to be too poor to describe the refulgence of the
hues of many of the feathered tribes;--the metallic gloss of the Trogons
and the oriental _Gallinaceæ_, the gem-like flashings of the
Humming-birds and the Birds of Paradise. Perhaps it would be deemed
extravagant to assert, that these glories can be _excelled_ by the tiny
races I am now discussing; but equalled, _most fully equalled_, they
assuredly are. To possess the glow of burnished metal upon the most
varied hues, is, in the order _Coleoptera_, a common thing. Most of the
_Eumolpidæ_ are remarkable for this; of which I may instance _Chrysochus
fulgidus_, a beetle from Bombay. The _Buprestidæ_ have long been
celebrated, for the same reason; and portions of their bodies have been
used in the toilet of ladies, in association with diamonds and rubies.
Many of the _Chlamydæ_ blaze with golden-crimson, purple, and the most
fiery orange. The species of the small genus _Eurhinus_ seem to send
forth the coloured flames of the pyrotechnic art. The _Longicornes_
display the same beauties, associated with gigantic size. _Cheloderus
Childreni_, for example, a large beetle from Columbia, is equal to any
_Buprestis_ for the radiance of the green, crimson, purple, blue,
scarlet, and gold, that are all at the same time flaming from its
singularly-sculptured surface.
But there are impressions conveyed by the reflection of light from the
bodies of many beetles, which far exceed the metallic fulgor of which I
have been speaking, beautiful as it is. I cannot hope to describe them
intelligibly; I know of no combination of words which will give an idea
of them. I mean the soft, almost velvety radiance of some of the
_Goliathi_; of many of the _Cetoniæ_, as the genus _Eudicella_, for
instance; and of not a few of the _Phanæi_, in the former two, the hue
is generally green; in the latter, this colour is associated with other
hues, most glowing, yet of an indescribable softness. I cannot imagine
anything of this sort more charming than the soft golden and orange hue
upon the green of the magnificent _Phanæus imperialis_.
Others again, as _Hoplia farinosa_, a little chafer from Southern
Europe, and many of the weevil tribe (_Curculionidæ_), are covered with
scales of vivid splendour, but so minute, and so closely set, that the
whole surface reflects one soft but rich lustre of tints, differing
according to the species. We would instance, of these, the noble species
of the genus _Cyphus_. Others of the same great family, on a dark but
still richly-coloured ground, have the minute scales clustered in spots
or bands, forming regular patterns in much variety; and in these they
reflect rainbow hues, as if a sunbeam decomposed through a prism had
been solidified and pulverised; or if viewed through a lens, looking
like powdered gems, each individual scale changing its hues with the
slightest motion of the eye. Among these we may mention _Hypsonotus
elegans_, _Cyphus spectabilis_, _Entimus splendidus_, and _E.
imperialis_, commonly known as diamond beetles; and the elegantly-shaped
genus _Pachyrhynchus_, of which the _P._ _gemmatus_, from the
Philippine Islands, is, perhaps, the most lovely of all earthly
creatures.
And if we look at the _Lepidoptera_, the order more especially under
review, we feel that beauty belongs to them rather as an essence than as
an accident. Their broad fan-like wings have an airy lightness and grace
to which the painter and the poet pay homage, when they endow the sylphs
and loves of their fancy with butterfly pinions.
They are clothed with minute scales, which are the vehicle of their
colours, somewhat resembling in this respect the beetles last spoken of;
but they have beauties peculiar to themselves. Fine combinations and
contrasts of colours are too much the rule in this order to need
specification; and these are often shaded and blended with a downy
softness, as in the Sphinges and Moths. As illustrious examples, I will
mention the _Gynautocera_, a group of Oriental Moths approaching in some
points the Butterflies, as exhibiting the most brilliant hues in bands
and clouds, but softly blended and mingled, with exceeding chasteness
and beauty.
Many species of the genus _Catagramma_, a group of Butterflies marked on
the inferior surface of the fore-wings with scarlet and black, and on
that of the hind with singular concentric circles of black on a white
ground, have on the superior surface the metallic lustre common in the
beetles, the wings being of golden green or blue. The genus _Urania_ has
this radiance still more conspicuous; while the inferior surface of some
of the _Theclæ_, as _T. imperialis_, _T. Actæon_, _T. Endymion_, &c., is
covered with the most rich and varied metallic hues, as if powdered
with gold, copper, and silver filings. Some Butterflies, as several of
our native _Fritillaries_, and more vividly an American species,
(_Argynnis passifloræ_,) one from New Zealand, (_Argyrophenga
antipodum_,) and the beautiful _Paphia Clytemnestra_, have spots of
burnished silver on their inferior surface; and several of our own
moths, as the genus _Plusia_, are so spotted on the upper surface.
Others display a lustre between that of silver and that of pearl, as
several species of _Charaxes_ on one, and the magnificent _Morpho
Laertes_ on both surfaces. But of this sort of beauty, perhaps nothing
can excel the gemmeous green, changing to azure, of _Papilio Ulysses_,
or that of _Apatura (?) laurentia_; or, above all, of some of the great
Brazilian _Morphos_. The blaze of silvery azure that flashes from _M.
Adonis_, _M. Cytheris_, and _M. Menelaus_, is indescribable; the eyes
are pained as they gaze upon it; yet there is said to be an unnamed
species from the emerald mountains of Bogota, of which a single specimen
is in a private cabinet in London, which is far more lustrous than
these.
The change from one hue to another produced by the play of light in
altering the angle of its reflection, has always been much admired; and
this occurs in great perfection, and with much diversity, in the lovely
insects of the _Lepidopterous_ order.
Some of the genus _Hætera_, (as _H. piera_, and _H. esmeralda_,) and
many of the _Heliconiadæ_, as _Hymenitis diaphana_, &c., have the wings
nearly or quite destitute of the ordinary scaly clothing, presenting
only a transparent membrane of great delicacy; over which the light
plays with a beautiful iridescence. _Papilio Arcturus_ and some allied
species, are of a golden-green, changing to blue, or to glowing purple.
Very many of the _Nymphalidæ_ are distinguished for a flush of
surpassing richness, that in one particular light gleams over the
surface. Our own _Apatura Iris_, commonly known as the purple emperor,
is a native example of this beauty, and still more _A. namoura_; but
especially the species of the genus _Thaumantis_, as well as _Morpho
Martia_, and _M. Automedon_. _Diadema bolina_ also displays a purple
flush over and around the white spots, which is exquisitely beautiful.
In general this glow is found only in the male, but in the lovely
_Epiphile chrysitis_ it is common to the female.
In _Colias Electra_ a warm purple glow plays over the surface in a
strong light, which is the more singularly beautiful, because the
permanent colour which is thus suffused is a rich golden orange. There
is, however, a species (_C. Lesbia_) of which only a single specimen is
known, and that is in fragments, in the Banksian Collection, which is in
this respect vastly superior to the former. In all these cases, the
playing gleam is more or less empurpled; in _Paphia Portia_, however, it
may be called crimson.
But still more exquisitely beautiful than any of these is the fine
opalescence that irradiates some butterflies in the changing beam. There
is a white butterfly from Senegal (_Anthocharis Ione_) allied to our
common garden whites, marked at the tips of the wings with a spot of
violet, surrounded by black. In a certain aspect, there plays over this
spot a violet opalescence of exceeding richness. And to mention no more,
(for, indeed, we know not that we could mention anything to surpass
this,) the carnation spots on the black wings of _Papilio Anchises_, _P.
Æneas_, _P. Tullus_, &c., are at intervals flushed with a violet
opalescence, so brilliant, that we know no other object to compare with
it.
In contemplating such objects, we cannot help concurring in the
sentiments expressed by the pious Ray:--"Quæri fortasse à nonnullis
potest, quis Papilionum usus sit? Respondeo, Ad ornatum universi, et ut
hominibus spectaculo sint: ad rura illustranda velut tot bracteæ
inservientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem et varietatem
contemplans mira voluptate non afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum
elegantias naturæ ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo
depictas curiosis oculis intuens, divinæ artis vestigia eis impressa non
agnoscat et miretur?" And I may add, since such exquisite traces of
loveliness remain in a world which Satan has spoiled and sin defiled,
what must have been its glory when He who made it could take complacency
in beholding it, and in the minutest details could pronounce it "very
good!"
The Rev. James Smith of Monquhitter thus alludes to the exquisite beauty
of some South American butterflies. One or two of the species I have
already alluded to, but even these can yield additional themes of
admiration. "I hold," he says, "that there are hues and shades of
colour which are positively beautiful in themselves, and independently
of all associations whatever; and to look upon which merely as patches
of colour, affords a gratification of no mean description. And for the
truth of such an opinion, I know not where I should obtain a stronger
and a more pleasing proof, than from the _Lepidoptera_ to which I have
alluded. The patch, for instance, which is on the posterior wings of the
_Hætera Esmeralda_, and which may be characterised as a compound of
carmine and of the deepest blue dotted with two spots of vermilion, will
in itself, and irrespectively of association, communicate a pleasure to
every eye which looks upon it. The band of silver blue on the wing of a
large _Morpho_; the deep tone, to speak in pictorial phrase, of the
black in the _Papilio Sesostris_, finer even than the finest velvet of
Genoa; the rich dark orange on _Epicilia Ancæa_; the blue, shining in
one unnamed species like polished steel, in another (_Thecla_) with a
radiant clearness, which ultramarine itself could not surpass; the
satin-like golden green, the pearly lustrous white, and the deep shining
emerald ribbons in _Urania Boisduvalii_; the crimson lines and spots
deeper and clearer than blood, in a species to which no name is
attached, of _Papilio_; the small spangles of silver with which the
under surface of one of the least among them (_Cupido_) is, as it were,
incrusted; the iridescent and delicate violet with which, on the same
surface, a particular species of _Hætera_ is, so to speak, washed over,
in a way which calls to our remembrance the 'scumbling' given by
Rembrandt as the finishing touch to his finest productions; all these,
and many more, possess a beauty which I contend, in opposition to the
doctrine of Alison and Jeffrey, is absolute in itself; which is
altogether irrespective of association; and which the most skilful of
human pencils would find it impossible completely and properly to
copy."[214]
I must apologise to fair readers for alluding to Spiders--"nasty
spiders!"--in a chapter on beauty; but prejudice must not make us shut
our eyes to glories even among these. In the tropical species there is
often metallic splendour and brilliance of colour. In my "Naturalist's
Sojourn in Jamaica," my friend Mr Hill has written some very interesting
observations on the web of a certain Spider, and on the relations of its
structure with that of the Spider itself; but I allude to it now because
of the elegance of the creature, the _Epeira argentata_ of Fabricius.
The upper surface of the body is of a glistening satiny or silvery
whiteness, the belly yellow, spotted with black, and the legs marked
with alternate rings of the same contrasted hues.
In the same island I was familiar with another species, (_Nephila
clavipes_,) remarkable for the length and strength of its silken cords.
The body, which is lengthened, is studded with round white spots, each
encircled with a black border, on a rich greenish brown ground,
reminding one of the characteristic markings of the Tragopans among
birds. The cephalothorax is shining black, its lustre half concealed by
a clothing of short silvery down: the legs are very long, and have a
remarkably elegant appearance from having a bunch of black hair set
around the extremity of the first and second joints, like the bristles
of a bottle-brush.
I fortify my own verdict with the observations of a brother naturalist
on the Spiders of Borneo, presuming that those which he alludes to
appear to belong to the genus _Gastracantha_, of which I have seen
species in Jamaica.
"The spiders, so disgusting in appearance in many other countries, are
here of quite a different nature, and are the most beautiful of the
insect tribe; they have a skin of a shell-like texture, furnished with
curious processes, in some long, in others short, in some few, in others
numerous; but are found, of this description, only in thick woods and
shaded places: their colours are of every hue, brilliant and metallic as
the feathers of the humming-bird, but are, unlike the bright colours of
the beetle, totally dependent on the life of the insect which they
beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve them."[215]
It is possible that this beauty might be less evanescent if the animals
were preserved in spirit or other antiseptic fluid. A writer in the
_Zoologist_ (p. 5929) mentions the fact that the iridescence of certain
beetles (_Cassida_) which is peculiarly splendid and metallic, and which
disappears immediately on the insects' becoming dry, is perpetuated in
its original loveliness when the specimens are preserved in spirit, even
after the lapse of several years.
The tropical species of this genus are far finer and richer than our
little English kinds, though these are pretty. I was much delighted by
the brilliance of some of the Jamaican species, and Sir Emerson Tennent
thus speaks of them in Ceylon:--
"There is one family of insects, the members of which cannot fail to
strike the traveller by their singular beauty, the _Cassidadæ_, or
tortoise beetles, in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the
limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. The rim is
frequently of a different tint from the centre, and one species which I
have seen is quite startling from the brilliancy of its colouring, which
gives it the appearance of a ruby inclosed in a frame of pearl; but this
wonderful effect disappears immediately on the death of the
insect."[216]
If we turn to the vegetable world, what a profusion of beauty do we
find! Exquisite are the tiny Mosses, when the fogs and rains of winter,
so inimical to other vegetation, have quickened them into verdure and
fruit. How they spread along the hedgerow banks in soft fleeces of vivid
emerald, and shoot up their slender stalks, each crowned with its tiny
urn, and wearing its fairy nightcap! Beautiful are the tiny dark-green
feather-like leaves of the Forkmoss crowded on the clayey bank;
beautiful the wild sprays of the plumy Hypnum; and beautiful the little
round velvet cushions of Tortula, that grow on every old wall-top.
"The tiny moss, whose silken verdure clothes
The time-worn rock, and whose bright capsules rise,
Like fairy urns, on stalks of golden sheen,
Demand our admiration and our praise,
As much as cedar kissing the blue sky
Or Krubul's giant-flower. God made them all,
And what _He_ deigns to make should ne'er be deem'd
Unworthy of our study."
Exquisite too are the Ferns, in their arching fronds, so richly cut in
elegant tracery. See a fine crown of the Lady Fern in a shaded
Devonshire lane, and confess that grace and beauty are triumphant there.
And in the saturated atmosphere of the tropical islands, where these
lovely plants form a very large proportion of the entire vegetation, and
some of them rise on slender stems thirty or forty feet in altitude,
from the summit of which the wide-spreading fronds arch gracefully on
every side, like a vast umbrella of twinkling verdure, through whose
filagree work the sunbeams are sparkling,--what can be more charming
than Ferns?
The queenly Palms, too, are models of stately beauty. Linnæus called
them _vegetabilium principes_; and, when we see them in some noble
conservatory of adequate dimensions, such as the glass palm-house at
Kew, crowded side by side, with their crowned heads, and lofty stature,
and proud, erect bearing, we are involuntarily reminded of the monarchs
of many kingdoms met in august conclave.
"Lo! higher still the stately palm-trees rise,
Chequering the clouds with their unbending stems,
And o'er the clouds, amid the dark-blue skies,
Lifting their rich unfading diadems.
How calm and placidly they rest
Upon the heaven's indulgent breast,
As if their branches never breeze had known!
Light bathes them aye in glancing showers,
And Silence, 'mid their lofty bowers,
Sits on her moveless throne."
Are the Grasses worthy of mention for their beauty? Surely, yes. Many of
them display a downy lightness exquisitely lovely, as the common
Feather-grass. The golden panicles of the great Quake-grass, so
curiously compacted and hanging in stalks of so hair-like a tenuity as
to nod and tremble with the slightest motion, how beautiful are these!
And the satiny plumes of the Pampas-grass projecting from the clump of
leaves form a fine object. But the Bamboos, those great arborescent
Grasses of the tropics, form a characteristic feature of the vegetation
of those regions, of almost unexampled magnificence. I have seen them in
their glory, and can sympathise with the philosophical Humboldt in the
powerful effect which the grandeur of the Bamboo produces on the poetic
mind. It is an object never to be forgotten, especially when growing in
those isolated clumps, that look like tufts of ostrich-plumes magnified
to colossal dimensions. A thousand of these noble reeds standing in
close array, each four or five inches in the diameter of its stem, and
rising in erect dignity to the height of forty feet, and all waving
their tufted summits in diverging curves moved by every breeze,--form,
indeed, a magnificent spectacle. Growing in the most rocky situations,
the Bamboo is frequently planted in Jamaica on the very apex of those
conical hills which form so remarkable a feature in the landscape of the
interior, and to which its noble tufts constitute a most becoming crown.
Mr Ellis thus describes the elegance of these magnificent Grasses in
Madagascar:--
"The base of the hills and the valleys were covered with the Bamboo,
which was far more abundant than during any former part of the journey.
There were at least four distinct varieties: one a large growing kind,
erect nearly to the point; a second smaller, seldom rising much above
twenty feet in height, bushy at the base, and gracefully bending down
its tapering point. A third kind rose in single cane, almost without a
leaf, to the height of thirty feet or more; or, bending over, formed a
perfectly circular arch. I also saw a Bamboo growing as a creeper, with
small short joints, feathered with slender leafy branches at every
joint, and stretching in festoons from tree to tree along the side of
the road, or hanging suspended in single lines from a projecting branch,
and swinging gently with the passing breeze. The appearance of the
Bamboo when growing is exceedingly graceful. Sometimes the canes, as
thick as a man's arm at the base, rise forty or fifty feet high, fringed
at the joints, which are two or three feet apart, with short branches of
long, lance-shaped leaves. The smaller kinds, which abound most in this
region, are still more elegant; and the waving of the canes, with their
attenuated but feathery-looking points, bending down like a plume, and
the tremulous quivering, even in the slightest breeze, of their long,
slender leaves, present ever-varying aspects of beauty; and, combined
with the bright-green colour of the Bamboo-cane and leaf, impart an
indescribable charm to the entire landscape."[217]
Glorious in loveliness are the _Musaceæ_, the Plantains and Bananas of
the hot regions. Humboldt calls the Banana "one of the noblest and most
lovely of vegetable productions;" and truly its enormous, flag-like
leaves of the richest green, permeated by nervures running transversely
in exactly parallel lines, and arching out in every direction from the
succulent, spongy, sheathed stem, command our admiration, apart from the
beauty of their flowers, or the importance of their fruit.
In a description of a mountain scene in Tahiti, drawn with graphic power
by Charles Darwin, the Banana forms a prominent element:--"I could not
look on the surrounding plants without admiration. On every side were
forests of Banana; the fruit of which, though serving for food in
various ways, lay in heaps decaying on the ground.... As the evening
drew to a close, I strolled beneath the gloomy shade of the Bananas up
the course of the stream. My walk was soon brought to a close, by coming
to a waterfall between two and three hundred feet high; and again above
this there was another.... In the little recess where the water fell, it
did not appear that a breath of wind had ever blown. The thin edges of
the great leaves of the Banana, damp with spray, were unbroken, instead
of being, as is so generally the case, split into a thousand shreds.
From our position, almost suspended on the mountain-side, there were
glimpses into the depths of the neighbouring valleys: and the lofty
points of the central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of the
zenith, hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was a sublime
spectacle to watch the shades of night gradually obscuring the last and
highest pinnacles."[218]
This scene must have been one of surpassing sublimity and loveliness.
Few doubtless have ever beheld anything that can be compared with it.
But perhaps many have felt--I have, often,--that there are occasions in
which the sense of the beautiful in nature becomes almost painfully
overpowering. I have gazed on some very lovely prospects, bathed perhaps
in the last rays of the evening sun, till my soul seemed to struggle
with a very peculiar undefinable sensation, as if longing for a power to
enjoy, which I was conscious I did not possess, and which found relief
only in tears. I have felt conscious that there were elements of
enjoyment and admiration there, which went far beyond my capacity of
enjoying and admiring; and I have delighted to believe, that, by and by,
when, in the millennial kingdom of Jesus, and, still more, in the
remoter future, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the
earth--the "_new_ earth,"--shall be endowed with a more than
paradisaical glory, there will be given to redeemed man a greatly
increased power and capacity for drinking in, and enjoying the augmented
loveliness. Doubtless the risen and glorified saints, sitting with the
King of kings upon His throne, will have the senses of their spiritual
bodies expanded in capacity beyond what we can now form the slightest
conception of; and as all then will be enjoyment of the most exquisite
kind, and absolutely unalloyed by interruption or satiety,--the eye will
at length be satisfied with seeing, and the ear be satisfied with
hearing. "_I shall be satisfied_, when I awake up with thy likeness."
It is in _Flowers_ that the beauty of the vegetable world chiefly
resides; and I shall now therefore select a few examples from the
profusion of lovely objects which the domain proper of Flora presents to
us.
That very curious tribe of plants, the _Orchideæ_, so remarkable for the
mimic forms of other things, that its blossoms delight to assume, is
also pre-eminent in gorgeous beauty. Take the _Sobraliæ_,--terrestrial
species from Central America, where they form extensive thickets,
growing thrice the height of man, with slender nodding stems, and
alternate willow-like leaves, and terminal racemes loaded with
snow-white, pink, crimson, or violet flowers.[219] Imagine the crushing
through "thickets" of the lovely _S. macrantha_! The large lily-like
blossoms of this species are eight inches long, and as many wide, of the
richest purple crimson, and of the most elegant shape conceivable, with
the lip so wrapped round the column as to appear funnel-shaped, bordered
by an exquisitely-cut fringe.
I have before alluded to _Phajus Tankervilliæ_, that rich lily-like
spike of blossom which I stumbled on in the midst of a dense thicket in
the mountains of Jamaica. Another terrestrial genus of great elegance is
_Cypripedium_, of which we have one native species, _C. calceolus_, the
yellow lady's slipper,--one of the most charming, but the rarest and
most difficult of propagation, of British plants. But this is far
excelled in beauty by many of the exotic species; as, for example, the
exquisite _C. barbatum_ from Malacca. The very foliage is princely; for
the nervures and cross-veins form a network pattern of dark green upon
the light green area of each broad leaf. The blossom rears up its noble
head erect, with its standard-petal of white, striped with green and
purple, the wing-petals studded with purple tubercles along their edges,
and the lip or slipper-shaped petal of a dark purple hue.
My readers may have occasionally noticed a little plant, in the most
recherchées stove-houses, of so much delicacy and preciousness that it
is invariably kept under a bell-glass. I mean the _Anæctochilus
setaceus_. It belongs to this tribe, and is a terrestrial species,
growing about the roots of the trees in the humid forests of Ceylon. Its
exquisite loveliness has attracted the attention of even the apathetic
Cingalese, who call it by the poetical epithet of _Wanna Raja_, or king
of the forest. It does not appear to possess any peculiar attractiveness
in its blossoms,--indeed, I have never seen it in flower; but its
leaves, which grow in opposite pairs, are elegantly heart-shaped, of a
deep rich greenish-brown hue, approaching to black, of a surface which
resembles velvet, reticulated all over with pale golden veins, which,
being numerous and minute, have a very charming appearance, somewhat
like the pale network on black patches which we see in the wings of some
dragon-flies.
The epiphyte Orchids are also magnificent in beauty. One of the
handsomest genera is _Dendrobium_, containing many species, mostly
natives of Southern Asia and the great islands. Perhaps the finest of
all is _D. nobile_, of which the sepals and petals are greenish-white,
tipped with rich purple, and the downy tube-like lip is of the same
regal hue in the interior, with a pale yellow margin.
By the side of this you may set the lovely _Huntleya violacea_, one of
the discoveries of Sir R. Schomburgk in the interior of Guiana. Its
broad wavy petals of the softest richest violet, "vary in intensity from
deepest sapphire to the mild iridescence of opal." This fine flower has
a melancholy interest from its being associated with the death of Sir
Robert's friend and fellow-servant, Mr Reiss. The gorgeous scenes of
tropical vegetation in which the plant was found, and the sad accident,
are thus depicted by the accomplished traveller:--
"I discovered the _Huntleya violacea_ for the first time in October
1837, then on my ascent of the river Essequibo. The large cataract,
Cumaka Toto, or Silk Cotton Fall, obliged us to unload our corials, and
to transport the luggage overland, in order to avoid the dangers which a
mass of water, at once so powerful and rapid, and bounded by numerous
rocks, might offer to our ascent. While the Indians were thus occupied,
I rambled about one of the small islands, which the diverging arms of
the river formed in their descent, and the vegetation of which had that
peculiar lively appearance which is so characteristic of the vicinity of
cataracts, where a humid cloud, the effects of the spray, always hovers
around them. Blocks of syenite were heaped together; and while their
black shining surface contrasted strongly with the whitish foam of the
torrent, and with the curly waves beating against the rocky barriers--as
if angry at the boundary which they attempted to set to the incensed
element--their dome-shaped summits were adorned with a vegetation at
once rich and interesting. _Heliconias_, _Tillandsias_, _Bromelias_,
_Ferns_, _Pothos_, _Cyrtopodiums_, _Epidendrums_, _Peperomias_, all
appeared to struggle for the place which so small a surface afforded to
them. The lofty mountains, Akaywanna, Comute, or Taquia, and Tuasinki,
recede and form an amphitheatre, affording a highly interesting scene,
and no doubt the most picturesque of that part of the river Essequibo.
"I was attracted by a number of _Oncidium altissimum_ which covered one
of the rocky piles, and astonished me by their long stems and bright
colour of their flowers, when my attention was more powerfully attracted
by a plant, the appearance of which, although different from the
pseudo-bulbous tribe, proclaimed, nevertheless, that it belonged to that
interesting family, the _Orchideæ_. The specimens were numerous; and
clothed almost, with their vivid green, the rugged and dark trunks of
the gigantic trees, which contributed to the majestic scene around me.
It was not long before I discovered one of these plants in flower. It
was as singular as it was new to me;--the sepals and petals of a rich
purple and velvet-like appearance; the helmet, to which form the column
bore the nearest resemblance, of the same colour; the labellum striated
with yellow.
"In the sequel of my expeditions, I found it generally in the vicinity
of cataracts, where a humid vapour is constantly suspended, and where
the rays of the sun are scarcely admitted through a thick canopy of
foliage. I traced the _Huntleya_ from the sixth parallel of latitude to
the shady mountains of the Acaria chain near the equator; but in its
fullest splendour it appeared at one of the small islands among the
Christmas cataracts in the river Berbice. There is a melancholy
circumstance connected with the plant, which its appearance never fails
to recall to my memory. Their singular beauty at this spot induced my
friend, Mr Reiss, who accompanied me as a volunteer during the
unfortunate expedition up the river Berbice, to draw and paint it on the
spot. He was yet occupied with this task when the last of our canoes was
to descend the dangerous cataract. He arose from his occupation,
desirous to descend with the Indians in the canoe, although against my
wish, but he persisted. The canoe approached the fall; it upset; and, of
thirteen persons who were in it at the time, he was the only one who
paid the rash attempt with his life. He is now buried opposite that
island, the richest vegetable productions of which it was his last
occupation to imitate on paper and in colours."[220]
We might linger long on these flowers of strange loveliness, but space
compels us to forsake them and to turn to some other examples in the
wide range of Flora's domains. How glorious a sight must be the sheeted
Rhododendrons of the Himalaya peaks, on whose lofty elevations Dr Hooker
found these fine plants in great prominence, "clothing the
mountain-slopes with a deep-green mantle, glowing with bells of
brilliant colours; of the eight or ten species growing here, [on the
Zemir, in Sikkim, twelve thousand feet above the sea,] every bush was
loaded with as great a profusion of blossoms as are their northern
congeners in our English gardens!"[221]
The noblest of the genus is that which is dedicated to Lady Dalhousie.
It is an epiphyte, being always found growing, like the Orchids, among
mosses and ferns, upon the trunks of large trees, especially oaks and
magnolias, at an elevation of from seven to ten thousand feet. In this
particular, in the fragrance of its noble white blossoms, in its slender
habit, in the whorled arrangement of its branches, and in the length of
time during which it continues in flower in its native regions, viz.,
from April to July, it differs from all its fellows of the same genus
that inhabit northern India.
The flowers are four inches in length and four in diameter, with a broad
trumpet lip. Their colour is pure white, assuming a delicate rosy tinge
as they become old, and sometimes becoming spotted with orange. They
have an odour which resembles that of the lemon.
Of this and the following species Dr Hooker writes from Dorjiling, seven
thousand feet above the sea:--"On the branches of the immense
purple-flowered magnolia, (_M. Campbellii_,) and those of oaks and
laurels, _Rhododendron Dalhousiæ_ grows epiphytally, a slender shrub
bearing from three to six white lemon-scented bells, four and a half
inches long and so many broad, at the end of each branch. In the same
woods the scarlet Rhododendron (_R. arboreum_) is very scarce, and is
outvied by the great _R. argenteum_, which grows as a tree, forty feet
high, with magnificent leaves twelve to fifteen inches long, deep green
wrinkled above and silvery below, while the flowers are as large as
those of _R. Dalhousiæ_ and grow more in a cluster. I know nothing of
the kind that exceeds in beauty the flowering branch of _R. argenteum_,
with its wide-spreading foliage and glorious mass of flowers."[222]
The latter, which is nearly equal to _R. Dalhousiæ_ in the size of its
blossoms, and perhaps superior to it in other respects, is another
white-flowered species. It is, as described above, a tree with large
massive leaves of a silvery tint beneath. When young, they are
exquisitely beautiful, being encased in long flesh-coloured cones of
large scales, of very ornamental appearance. The flowers are three
inches long, forming a compact globose head.
They secrete a large quantity of honey, which is said to be poisonous,
as is also that of _R. Dalhousiæ_.
The grandeur and beauty of the same genus are celebrated by Mr Low, as
he saw the species growing in Borneo, where too their parasitic
character struck him, as it had done Dr Hooker:--
"Perhaps the most gorgeous of the native plants are the various species
of the genus _Rhododendron_, which here assume a peculiar form, being
found epiphytal upon the trunks of trees, as the genera of the tribe
_Orchidace{oe}_. This habit, induced probably by the excessive moisture of
the climate, is not, however, confined to the Ericaceous plants, but
also prevails with the genera _Fagria_, _Combretum_, and many others,
usually terrestrial; the roots of the Rhododendrons, instead of being,
as with the species [which are] inhabitants of cold climates, small and
fibrous, become large and fleshy, winding round the trunks of the forest
trees; the most beautiful one is that which I have named in compliment
to Mr Brooke. Its large heads of flowers are produced in the greatest
abundance throughout the year: they much exceed in size those of any
known species, frequently being formed of eighteen flowers, which are of
all shades, from pale and rich yellow to a rich reddish salmon-colour;
in the sun, the flowers sparkle with a brilliancy resembling that of
gold dust.
"Four other species which I discovered are very gorgeous, but of
different colours, one being crimson and another red, and the third a
rich tint between these two: of the fourth I have not yet seen the
flowers."[223]
Take an example from another order. The Lightning-tree of Madagascar
rises before us in the graphic pages of Mr Ellis:--
"But the most magnificent objects were the fine trees of _Astrapæa
Wallichii_, or _viscosa_. The name of this Malagasy plant was derived
from the word for lightning, on account of the brilliancy of its
flowers; and Sir Joseph Paxton and Dr Lindley have thus spoken of _A.
Wallichii_:--'One of the finest plants ever introduced. And when loaded
with its magnificent flowers, we think nothing can exceed its grandeur.'
I had seen a good-sized plant growing freely at Mauritius, but here it
was in its native home, luxuriating on the banks of the stream, its
trunk a foot in diameter, its broad-leaved branches stretching over the
water, and its large, pink, globular, composite[224] flowers, three or
four inches in diameter, suspended at the end of a fine down-covered
stalk, nine inches or a foot in length. These, hanging by hundreds along
the course of the stream, surpassed anything of the kind I had seen, or
could possibly have imagined. I frequently met with the _Astrapæa_
afterwards, but always growing near the water, and its branches
frequently stretching over a lake or river."[225]
The Leguminous or Papilionaceous order presents many plants of striking
beauty, both in foliage, which is often of extreme lightness and
elegance, and also in blossom. They are among the gayest and most
graceful of plants in all regions. The magnificent vegetation of the
Mauritius contains one of notable glory, the Flamboyant, thus noticed by
Ellis:--
"Conspicuous beyond all the rest is the stately and gorgeous _Poinciana
regia_, compact-growing and regular in form, but retaining something of
the acacia habit, rising sometimes to the height of forty or fifty feet,
and, between the months of December and April, presenting, amidst its
delicate pea-green pinnated leaves, one vast pyramid of bunches of
bright, dazzling scarlet flowers. Seen sometimes over the tops of the
houses, and at others in an open space, standing forth in truly regal
splendour, this is certainly one of the most magnificent of trees. Its
common name is _mille fleurs_, or _flamboyant_."[226]
I have had the delight of seeing the _Poinciana pulcherrima_ in Jamaica,
where it goes by the name of Flower-feuce, or sometimes, the "Pride of
Barbadoes." It is, when in flower, a gorgeous mass of scarlet and
orange, and it seemed to me the most magnificent thing in its way, that
I had ever seen. It does not, however, attain the dimensions of its
antipode, rarely exceeding those of a large shrub.
I know not what the Burmese tree is, which is alluded to in the
following extracts from letters which I have received from my esteemed
friend, Captain G. E. Bulger, of the 10th Regiment:--
"I shall be exceedingly obliged by your telling me whether you are
familiar with the tree known in the West Indies and South America as the
'Bois Immortel;' and whether you think the leaf herewith sent belongs to
it.
"During the cool season in Burmah, the forest presents a gorgeous sight,
from the multitude of scarlet blossoms which a large kind of tree puts
forth; and I am strongly inclined to think that this splendid ornament
of the jungles is, at all events, allied to the Bois Immortel of the
Western World.
"The tree I speak of begins to flower about the middle of December, at
which time the leaves commence to wither and drop off. By the end of
January, when it is in full bloom, there is hardly a leaf remaining, but
it continues one mass of scarlet blossom until March. The flower is
shaped like that of the pea.
"If you can enlighten me on this point I shall be indeed very much
obliged."
I was compelled to confess my ignorance even of the South American
beauty, and my friend thus replied:--
"I first read of the 'Bois Immortel' in 'Waterton's Wanderings,' and I
subsequently saw a coloured representation of the tree in Mr Gould's
magnificent work on Humming-Birds. I think the specific name was also
given in that work, but it is some time ago, and I have almost forgotten
what it was like. Since I saw these two works, I have heard officers
speak of the splendour of the South American forests during the season
of 'Le Bois Immortel,' and have heard more than one say that they
believed nothing on earth could be more magnificent than 'matchless
Trinidad' when these trees are in full bloom. The autumnal beauty of the
North American woods is, doubtless, familiar to you, and I question very
much whether there is anything richer or more lovely to be found even in
South America."
Even the humblest orders of plants have the element of beauty bestowed
on them with no niggard hand. Who would have expected, among the
_Chenopodeæ_, and, above all, in the lowly little Saltworts, to find
such a glowing scene as Mr Atkinson describes?--
"We were now on a heavy sandy steppe--part of the Sackha Desert, which
extends into the Gobi--and vegetation was so very scant, that even the
steppe grass had disappeared. The _Salsola_ was growing in a broad belt
around the small salt lakes, its colour varying from orange to the
deepest crimson. These lakes have a most singular appearance when seen
at a distance. The sparkling of the crystallised salt, which often
reflected the deep crimson around, gave them the appearance of diamonds
and rubies set in a gorgeous framework. I rode round several times,
admiring their beauty, and regretting that it was impossible to stay and
visit a large lake, which I observed, ten or fifteen versts distant,
surrounded with green, orange, and crimson."[227]
The microscope, too, will bring out beauties in flowers which the
unassisted eye is incompetent fully to recognise. If we take a scarlet
Geranium, or a purple Heartsease, the eye is delighted with the
brilliancy of the colouring; but on placing a petal of either on a slip
of glass, under a pretty high magnifying power, and reflecting the full
rays of the sun through the object, the rich gorgeousness of the hue,
the sparkling gem-like radiance of the surface, and the
exquisitely-regular form of the round cells, with their clear
interstices, form a spectacle of glorious beauty that almost surpasses
the conception of one who has not seen it.
I shall close this chapter, which might easily have been expanded into a
volume, with a reference to an humble and minute plant, whose fairy
loveliness, combined with an almost unkillable hardiness of
constitution, has won for it a place in every garden, however
unpretending, and however ungenial in its locality,--the London-pride.
This exquisite little Saxifrage, general favourite as it is, requires
the microscope to bring out its beauties to advantage, but under a good
instrument you cannot fail to be charmed with it. I have one before me
at this moment, and will describe what I see.
First, I notice, on a cursory glance, that the whole plant is clothed
with tiny hairs; I take one of the flower-stalks and examine these with
a power of three hundred diameters. Each now becomes a stem of
glass-like clearness, tapering upwards to a point, where it bears a
richly crimson cup, and in this is seated a globule of colourless
glass, just as an acorn sits in its shell. The multitude of these
organs--glandular hairs, the botanist calls them--standing up side by
side, rising to varying heights, and displaying various degrees of
development, is a very pleasing sight.
I turn to an unopened bud, putting on a lower power, and viewing it as
an opaque object, with reflected light by the aid of the Lieberkuhn.
Here are the parting sepals of the calyx, painted with rose-pink and
pea-green, and studded all over with the knobbed hairs just noticed; the
coloured surface is rough with granules, but it is the roughness of
glass, for every knob gleams and sparkles with light. The corolla, a
little white ball, displays its petals smoothly folded over each other,
and their surface has the same appearance of granular glass as that of
the calyx.
But now let me examine this blossom just expanded this morning,--the
very first of the season, by the way. I must have a low power for this,
eighty diameters, or so. Oh, how exquisite! The little saucer of five
oval petals, each of snowy whiteness, bearing its bow of lovely crimson
specks, with a spot of gamboge-yellow for the chord, and the whole
sparkling with glassy points as before. The pale red germen in the
centre, rising into two points of snow, their rosy tips pressed close
together, as if the twins were kissing. The ten stamens, five short
alternating with five long ones, and each bearing its pretty
kidney-shaped anther of pale scarlet. No; all are not kidney-shaped; for
here is one which has burst, and the grains of red pollen are seen
covering its rough purple surface; and here is one stamen from the
point of which the anther has gone, leaving only two or three
pollen-grains adhering. Behind all, I see the sepals of the calyx,
peeping out between the petals, and forming a fine dark background for
them, and for the longer filaments.
And now I say to my readers, one and all,--you may not have the
opportunity to examine the glorious tropical Orchids, or the gorgeous
Flamboyant, but go and pluck a flower of the London-pride, and you will
have before your eyes such a production of Divine handiwork as may well
excite the admiration and adoration of an angel.
[203] Rev. v. 11.
[204] Edwards's _Voyage up the Amazon_, 194.
[205] _Travels on the Amazon and Negro_, 222.
[206] _Voy. à la Nouv. Guinée._
[207] _Amer. Ornith._
[208] Edwards's _Voy. up the Amazon_, 143.
[209] _Martial_, xiii. 72.
[210] _Windsor Forest._
[211] See _Good Words_ for April 1861.
[212] _Wordsworth_.
[213] _Wanderings in N. S. Wales_, &c., ii. 43.
[214] _Zool._, 3060.
[215] Low's _Sarawak_, 87.
[216] Tennent's _Ceylon_, i. 250.
[217] Ellis's _Visit to Madagascar_, 313.
[218] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. xviii.
[219] Pöppig.--_Nov. Gen. et Sp._, i. 54.
[220] Lindley's _Sertum Orchid._; pi. xxvi.
[221] _Himal. Journ._, ii. 58.
[222] _Himal. Journals_, i. 126.
[223] Low's _Sarawak_, 65.
[224] The writer by this term doubtless alludes to the panicles or heads
_compounded_ of many individual flowers; for the plant does not belong
to the order _Compositæ_, but to _Byttneriaceæ_.
[225] Ellis's _Madagascar_, p. 390.
[226] Ellis's _Visits to Madagascar_, 57.
[227] Atkinson's _Siberia_, 472.
XI.
PARASITES.
Vast as is this round world on which we live, its surface is not nearly
large enough for all the living creatures which are ordained to inhabit
it. Multitudes of animals do not walk on the ground, or swim in the
waters, or fly in the air, but find the scene of their abode on or in
the bodies of other animals. Multitudes of plants do not grow out of the
soil, but attach themselves to other plants, and draw their sustenance
and support thence. Nay, there are parasites upon parasites, and this,
according to Hood, in an infinitely descending series.
"Great fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite 'em;
And little fleas have lesser fleas;
And so _ad infinitum_."
Perhaps the poet's imagination ran a little ahead of his science here;
but the idea of an _infinite_ succession of parasites, like nests of
pill-boxes, is surely a funny one. There is nothing funny, however, in
the thought "that even man," who was made in the image of God, "bears
about in his vital organs various forms of loathsome creatures, which
riot on his fluids, and consume the very substance of his tissues while
ensconced where no efforts of his can dislodge them, no application
destroy them. So it is; and few physical facts are better calculated to
humble man, and stain the pride of his glory, than to feel that he may
at any moment be nourishing a horrid tape-worm in his alimentary canal,
or that his muscles may be filled with millions of microscopic
_trichinæ_.
I will not dwell on these; though, if I were writing a book of pure
science, there is a wondrous array of facts of the most striking and
interesting character, connected with the structure, the metamorphoses,
and the habits, of the Entozoic Worms, which I might present to my
readers. It is more pleasant to consider other facts, perhaps not less
marvellous, which, as they do not come quite so home to our personal
feelings, will not excite horror and disgust in our minds.
The _economy_ of creation is remarkable. He who, by His divine
manipulation converted five loaves and two small fishes into a hearty
meal for five thousand men, besides women and children, and who could,
with the same ease have made them a hundred times as much, said, when
the meal was over, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." And,
when He spread the earth with life, though His resources were infinite,
He ordained that one object, itself healthfully enjoying life, and
fulfilling its own proper ends of being, should be a microcosm, on which
another range of life should find its sphere, and on which it should
disport, as on an independent world. I have often admired, in the
gorgeous tropical forests, what a wilderness of vegetation a single
tree supports; what numbers of orchids and wild pines spring out of the
forks, what creepers and lianes hang and twine about its branches, what
elegant ferns cluster on the horizontal limbs, what snake-like cacti
creep from bough to bough, what mosses, and jungermanniæ crowd in every
crevice, what many-coloured lichens stud the rugged bark! And then
animal life is swarming in all this great field of parasitic vegetation.
Reptiles and birds, snails and slugs, insects and millepedes, and
spiders and worms nestle by thousands in such prolific situations, so
that a great old tropical tree, one of the giant figs or cotton-trees,
is a very museum in itself.
And in my wanderings along the sea-edge here at home how often have I
been amazed at the diverse population, plant and animal, which crowds a
single oar-weed, or tangle! The stem fringed with delicate red-weeds, as
the minute _Rhodymeniæ_, and _Polysyphoniæ_, and _Callithamnia_; the
tortuous roots studded with Anemones, with _Flustræ_ and _Lepraliæ_, and
multitudes of other _Polyzoa_, with tiny Polypes of many kinds, with
Barnacles and Limpets, and sheltering small Crustacea, and Mites, and
Annelids by scores.
Mr Darwin has an interesting passage on this subject, evoked by the
profusion of parasitic life on the long sea-weed of Cape Horn
(_Macrocystis_). "The number of living creatures" he remarks, "whose
existence intimately depends on the Kelp is wonderful. A great volume
might be written, describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of
sea-weed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float on the
surface, are so thickly incrusted with corallines as to be of a white
colour. We find exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by
simple hydra-like polypi, others by more organised kinds, and beautiful
compound Ascidiæ. On the leaves also, various patelliform shells,
Trochi, uncovered molluscs, and some bivalves are attached. Innumerable
crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great
entangled roots, a pile of small fish, shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all
orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, beautiful Holuthuriæ, Planariæ, and
crawling nereidous animals of a multitude of forms, all fall out
together. Often as I recurred to a branch of the kelp, I never failed to
discover animals of new and curious structure. In Chiloe, where the kelp
does not thrive very well, the numerous shells, corallines, and
crustacea are absent; but there yet remain a few of the Flustraceæ, and
some compound Ascidiæ; the latter, however, are of different species
from those in Terra del Fuego: we here see the fucus possessing a wider
range than the animals which use it as an abode. I can only compare
these great aquatic forests of the southern hemisphere, with the
terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions.
"Yet if in any country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe nearly
so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the
destruction of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous
species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or shelter:
with their destruction the many cormorants and other fishing birds, the
otters, seals, and porpoises, would soon perish also; and lastly, the
Fuegian savage, the miserable lord of this miserable land, would
redouble his cannibal feast, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to
exist."
I have alluded to the epiphytic plants which are so abundant in the
tropics, and which add so greatly to the gorgeousness of the forests
there. The most remarkable, or, at all events, the best known, of these
are the _Orchideæ_, to which, as I have already had occasion more than
once to speak of them, I shall do little more than refer here. These
establish themselves in the forks, upon the greater limbs, and even in
the roughnesses of the bark of the trunk, adhering by their long,
interlaced roots, which look like knotted whip-cord, and forming their
bunches of psuedo-bulbs, whence their succulent, thick, but elegant
leaves project,--a great tuft of verdure; and their fantastic
flower-scapes wave in the air or droop with their weight of gorgeous
bloom. Thus they derive their nourishment from the humid atmosphere
alone, being dependent on the friendly tree only for support and
elevation. Humidity seems essential to the vigour of these and most
other forms of parasitic vegetation. In the deep shady, gloomy forests
of Java, which constitute the zone of vegetation around the base of the
mountains, these plants abound, where the air is heavy and damp with the
vapours that cannot ascend, and where the density of the foliage is
almost frightful; where heat, moisture, and a most extraordinarily deep
and rich vegetable soil combine to produce wood of a fungus-like
softness, and an inconceivable abundance of twining plants and
epiphytes. In those forests, more especially where huge fig-trees
constitute the principal part of the timber, intermingled with the most
tropical forms of vegetation, such as _Sterculiaceæ_, _Sapindaceæ_, and
_Artocarpeæ_, tufts of _Orchideæ_ attain a vast size and luxuriance, in
company with Aroideous and Zinziberaceous plants.[228] In Demerara, Mr
Henchman found masses of _Oncidium altissimum_ and _Maxillaria Parkeri_
of wide dimensions, and so densely growing as to defy any attempt at
intrusion; and on the Spanish main he saw the _Epidendrum_ known as the
"Spread Eagle" clasping enormous trees, and covering them from the top
to the bottom.
The fig-trees, which are among the most gigantic of the tropical
forest-trees, and which support an immense profusion of epiphytes, are
themselves frequently parasitic and epiphyte in their early condition.
It is not uncommon in Jamaica to see a network of roots partially
embracing the trunk of some great tree, far up its column, and gradually
creeping round and downward. I have seen an old wall so covered,
presenting a very curious spectacle. The roots of a wide-spreading fig
growing out of the summit of the wall, had spread over its perpendicular
surface, down to the earth, all in the same plane, clinging to the wall;
the chief roots were as thick as a man's leg, but subordinate roots had
proceeded from one to another, anastomosing in all directions (if I may
use such a term), so as to make a most elaborate network of a multitude
of meshes of various angular forms and sizes. These cross-roots were _at
each extremity_ united with the larger roots, and looked as if the whole
network had been skilfully carved out of one solid plank of wood, by
cutting out the areas or meshes, and rounding the component bars; the
very bark that covered the whole was continuous, where the roots united,
as if they had been always integrally one.
The only mode in which I can account for this singular phenomenon is the
following hypothesis:--The seed of the tree was originally deposited on
the summit of the wall, beneath the eaves. As it germinated, the roots
ran down towards the earth, some perpendicularly, some diagonally; but
all creeping along the surface of the wall, no roots having shot out
from its perpendicular. As these roots increased, they sent out side
rootlets, which, still running on the face of the wall, by and by came
in contact with another of the primary roots. Then, instead of creeping
_over_ it, as the roots of other trees would have done, the soft tip of
the rootlet actually united with the substance of the root at the point
of contact, the fibres of the two becoming interlaced, and their united
surfaces gradually becoming covered with a common bark. The repetition
of this process had produced the very curious wooden net which I have
attempted to describe.
A still more remarkable example of this parasitic mode of growth I have
seen in the same island. By the side of a mountain road was a large
fig-tree, the base of whose trunk was about thirty feet from the
ground. Thence it reared itself up pillar-like towards the heavens, and
spread abroad its vast horizontal array of branches across the road.
From the same point there descended to the earth a hollow cone of roots,
interwoven and anastomosed, especially at the upper parts, in the same
manner as those of the boiling-house wall, but forming towards the
bottom only three or four flattened irregular columns. Into the area
inclosed by this network of roots a person might enter, for it was about
six feet wide, and, looking up, behold the base of the trunk eight or
ten yards above his head.
The explanation of this curious phenomenon depends upon the tendency
just mentioned. On this site once stood a large tree of some other
species, probably a cotton-tree (_Eriodendron_), or some other
soft-timbered kind. The little scarlet berry of a Fig-tree was carried
by some vagrant Banana-bird or Pigeon to its boughs, and there devoured.
After the little truant had finished his morsel, he perhaps wiped his
beak against the rough bark of the trunk, beside the branch on which he
was seated. Some of the minute seeds, enveloped in mucilage, were thus
left on the tree, which the rain presently washed down into the broad
concavity of the forks, where, among moss and rotten leaves, it soon
germinated and grew. The roots gradually crept down the trunk of the
supporting tree, closely clinging to its bark, and by their
interlacement at length formed a living case, enveloping it on every
side, and penetrating the earth around its base. The growth of these,
and also of the inclosed tree, daily induced a tighter and tighter
pressure on the latter, which at length arrived at such a degree as to
stop the circulation of the sap between the bark and the wood. Death, of
course, was the result, and speedy decay reduced the supporting tree to
a heap of mouldering dust: while the parasite, now able to maintain its
own position by its hollow cone of roots, increased in size and
strength, and overtopped its fellows of the forest;--_a tree standing
upon stilts_.
A few years ago I was struck with the appearance of an East Indian
species of the same genus in one of the conservatories at Kew. Three
shoots had run up the wall, clinging so close, that the leaves looked as
if they were actually glued to the bricks, one over the other, in the
most regular manner. Yet, on examination, I saw that the leaves did not
adhere at all; the only support was that of the tiny rootlets which
proceeded laterally from each stem, which the leaves concealed. The
appearance of the whole was so curious, with the pale growing bud
peeping out from beneath the topmost leaf, that I was greatly attracted
by it. The base of the plant was in a pot, but the attendant informed me
that this connexion was about to be cut off, by severing each shoot at
the point where it first seized the wall. The leaves above this point,
by their superior size and vigour, shewed that the plant was already
independent of its pot, and that it was capable of supporting itself,
like a proper air-plant, by imbibition from the atmosphere alone,
needing nothing more than support in its upright position, which it
obtained from the wall by its clinging aerial rootlets.
Every one who has wandered in a primeval forest of the tropics, whether
in the eastern or the western hemisphere, has been struck by the
inconceivable profusion of the climbers and twiners with which the trees
are laced together. They are found from the thickness of a warship's
cable to that of pack-thread; the stronger ones often uncouthly twisted
together, and binding tree to tree. They are of the orders
_Malpighaceæ_, _Apocyaneæ_, _Asclepiadeæ_, _Bignoniaceæ_, &c., and often
are adorned with the most brilliant flowers.
I have before cited descriptions of these wonderful lianes, as they
occur in the forests of South America; my readers may like to peruse Sir
Emerson Tennent's graphic sketch of those of Ceylon:--
"It is the trees of older and loftier growth that exhibit the rank
luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes in the most striking manner.
They are tormented by climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions
that many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man; and these
gigantic appendages are to be seen surmounting the tallest trees in the
forest, grasping their stems in firm convolutions, and then flinging
their monstrous tendrils over the larger limbs till they reach the top,
whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, and, after including
another and another tree in their successive toils, they once more
ascend to the summit, and wind the whole into a maze of living network
as massy as if formed by the cable of a line-of-battle ship. When, by
and by, the trees on which this singular fabric has become suspended
give way under its weight, or sink by their own decay, the fallen trunk
speedily disappears, while the convolutions of climbers continue to grow
on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and peculiar living mounds of
confusion that it is possible to fancy. Frequently one of these creepers
may be seen holding by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, and
grasping with the other an object at some distance near the earth,
between which it is strained as tight and straight as if hauled over a
block. In all probability the young tendril had been originally fixed in
this position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained its
maturity, where it has the appearance of having been artificially
arranged as if to support a falling tree."[229]
Leaving the vegetable world, we may find some very curious examples of
parasitism among Insects. Every one who has paid the slightest attention
to this class of animals is aware that there are slender flies called
_Ichneumons_, whose grubs are hatched and reared in the bodies of other
insects. Many of these have the ovipositor greatly lengthened, and
projecting like a very slender needle from the extremity of the abdomen.
In some species, this needle-like organ is three or four times the
entire length of the body; and this great longitude is intended to reach
the pupæ of wasps and similar insects which inhabit deep holes. The
needle itself is well worthy of study. It is not simple, but composed
of two pieces forming a sheath, which open and reveal a central finer
filament, furnished at its tip (in _Pimpla manifestator_, for example)
with saw-like teeth. With this instrument, which possesses great
elasticity and flexibility, the insect works, as a carpenter with his
brad-awl, boring through the clay, with which the wasp has closed up the
hole that contains her grub, until the tip of the ovipositor reaches the
soft body of the insect. Into this it pierces, and deposits an egg, and
is withdrawn. The slight puncture is scarcely felt by the grub, which
continues to eat and grow; the inserted egg, however, presently hatches,
and produces the ichneumon-grub, which begins to feed on the fat of the
wasp-grub, instinctively avoiding the vital parts, until the latter has
attained nearly its full size, and is ready to pass into the pupa state;
when, its vigour being gone, it fails to accomplish the metamorphosis,
the insidious intruder, now also full grown, taking its place, and by
and by issuing from the hole a perfect Ichneumon.
How often has the enthusiastic young entomologist been subjected to sore
disappointment by the parasitic habits of these _Ichneumonidæ_! He has
obtained some fine caterpillar, a great rarity, and by dint of much
searching of his Westwood or his Stainton, feels quite certain that it
is the larva of some much-prized butterfly. He ascertains its leaf-food;
which it eats promisingly; all goes on encouragingly. Surely it cannot
be far from the pupa state now! When some morning he is horrified to
behold, instead of the chrysalis, a host of filthy little grubs eating
their way out of the skin of his beautiful caterpillar, or covering its
remains with their tiny yellow cocoons.
Some of these parasites are so minute that their young are hatched and
reared in the _eggs_ of other insects. Bonnet found that the egg of a
butterfly, itself no bigger than the head of a minikin pin, was
inhabited by several of the stranger grubs; for out of twenty such eggs,
he says, "a prodigious quantity" of the grubs were evolved.
A very interesting tribe of insects, so diverse from all other known
forms as to constitute an order among themselves, that of the
_Strepsiptera_, passes its youth in the bodies of certain wild bees. Mr
Kirby's account of his first detection of one of these, though often
quoted, is so interesting that I must cite it afresh. "I had previously
observed," he remarks, "upon bees something that I took to be a kind of
mite (_Acarus_), which appeared to be immovably fixed just at the
inosculations of the dorsal segments of the abdomen. At length, finding
three or four upon an _Andræna nigroænea_, I determined not to lose the
opportunity of taking one off to examine and describe; but what was my
astonishment when, upon my attempting to disengage it with a pin, I drew
forth from the body of the bee a white fleshy larva, a quarter of an
inch in length, the head of which I had mistaken for an acarus (_bee
louse_)! After I had examined one specimen, I attempted to extract a
second; and the reader may imagine how greatly my astonishment was
increased, when, after I had drawn it out but a little way, I saw its
skin burst, and a head as black as ink, with large staring eyes and
antennæ, consisting of two branches, break forth, and move itself
quickly from side to side. It looked like a little imp of darkness just
emerged from the infernal regions. My eagerness to set free from its
confinement this extraordinary animal may be easily conjectured. Indeed,
I was impatient to become better acquainted with so singular a creature.
When it was completely disengaged, and I had secured it from making its
escape, I set myself to examine it as accurately as possible; and I
found, after a careful inquiry, that I had got a nondescript, whose very
class seemed dubious."
Mr Newman, in an essay of much value,[230] has shewn that the larvæ of
this tribe of insects are born alive, that they attach themselves to the
abdomens of wild bees, nestling among the hair, and that they are thus
introduced into the nest of the bee. Here it is somewhat uncertain how
they are sustained at first, for at this time the bee-grubs are not
hatched; probably they remain without food for some days, or devour a
portion of the pollen and honey stored up. As soon, however, as the
bee-grub is hatched, the Stylops-larva undergoes a metamorphosis, sheds
its six legs, and becomes a footless maggot; it pierces the soft skin of
the bee-grub, and feeds on its juices, till its maturity, as the
Ichneumon on the body of the caterpillar.
When the perfect bee emerges in the following spring, it bears the
full-grown Stylops, protruding from the rings of its abdomen. The latter
is in pupa, all the organs being distinct and separate, but wrapped
together, and inclosed in separate pellicles; very soon, it emerges, as
described by Kirby, and escapes, leaving a great unsightly cavity in the
body of the bee. This is the male: the female never escapes, but lays
its eggs on the bee in which it has been reared, and then dies.
In the spring we frequently see among herbage a great uncouth beetle of
a dark blue-black hue, with short wing-cases and long, heavy body, which
discharges drops of yellow fluid when handled, and is therefore called
the Oil-beetle (_Melöe proscarabæus_). The early stages of this beetle
have much affinity with those of the _Stylops_. The beetle lays a number
of yellow eggs in a hole in the earth; these produce little active
six-footed larvæ, resembling lice, which crawl to the summit of
dandelion and other flowers in the sunshine, and await the visit of a
bee. On the arrival of one, the active grub immediately clings to its
body, and is carried to the nest, not, however, to introduce itself
parasitically into the body of the bee-grub, but to feed on the
provision which the parent bee has stored up for its own young. Thus it
becomes very fat, and grows to a size much larger than that of the
full-grown bee-grub, having early dropped its six long clinging legs,
which, having performed their proper function in catching hold of a bee,
are no longer needed. It changes to a perfect beetle in autumn, lies in
the bee's nest all the winter, and emerges in the spring.
The large jelly-like Medusæ which in summer are seen floating around our
coasts, driving themselves along by alternate contractions and
expansions of their umbrella, are frequently infested by little
creatures of widely different organisation, Crustaceans belonging to the
genera _Hyperia and Metoecus_. On the beautiful _Chrysaora_ of the
southern coast I have seen the _Metoecus medusarum_, a little shrimp
about half-an-inch in length, with enormous lustrous green eyes, which
takes up his residence in the cavities of the sub-umbrella,--dwelling in
them as in so many spacious and commodious apartments, of which he takes
possession, evidently without asking leave of the landlord, or paying
him even the compliment of a peppercorn rent. Here he snugly ensconces
himself, and feels so much at home, that he is not afraid to leave his
dwelling now and then, to take a swim in the free water, returning to
his chamber after his exercise; and here he rears his numerous family,
which, in the form of tiny white specks, very much unlike their parents
in shape, stud the membranes of the jelly-fish.
But, what is stranger still, Mr M'Cready has recently discovered in the
harbour of Charleston in North America, a _Medusa_ which is parasitic
upon another _Medusa_. _Cunina octonaria_ does not swim freely in the
water, but inhabits the cavity of the bell of _Turritopsis nutricula_.
"Not only does the latter furnish a shelter and dwelling-place for the
larvæ during their development; it also serves as their nurse, by
allowing the parasites, whilst adhering by their tentacles, to draw
nourishment out of its mouth by means of a large proboscis. In point of
fact, the relation between them is of so unprecedented a nature, that
the author may well be excused for having at first taken the impudent
parasite for the gemmiparous progeny of the sheltering Medusa. The
youngest state of this parasitic Medusa observed by the author formed a
ciliated body of clavate form, adhering to the cavity of the bell by
means of the slender stalk in which it terminated. The first change
consists in the emission, from the thick end, of two slender flexible
tentacles, and in the formation of a central cavity by liquefaction. At
this stage of development, the author frequently observed gemmation
taking place at the thicker end, sometimes frequently repeated.
Subsequently the number of tentacles becomes doubled. These bend
together over the clavate extremity, and are then employed, instead of
the thin end of the body, in adhering to the cavity of the sheltering
Medusa. The thin extremity then acquires a mouth, and may be recognised
as a stomachal peduncle, which is employed, as above indicated, in
obtaining nourishment. The morphological nature of the proboscis becomes
still more distinct when, after the lapse of some little time, an
annular fold makes its appearance immediately under the tentacles, which
is recognisable from its form, and from the formation in it of (eight)
otolithic capsules, as the first indication of the future bell.
Simultaneously with the otolithic capsules, four rudimentary tentacles
make their appearance between the four tentacles. The Medusa remains in
this stage of development for a long time. The bell gradually becomes
more freely developed, and at last, by the reduction and entire
disappearance of the stomachal peduncle, becomes the most essential part
of the Medusa, after it has left its previous dwelling-place in the bell
of the _Turritopsis_. The bell nevertheless retains for some time its
earlier lobed form and unequal tentacles."[231]
More remarkable even than this association is the fact that certain true
Fishes habitually reside in the stomachs of star-fishes. This
circumstance, which had been observed in the Oriental Archipelago by MM.
Quoy and Gaimard, and by Dr Bleeker, has recently been confirmed by Dr
Doleschall, who has written a very interesting Memoir on it.
This learned naturalist states that the fact of the connexion between
the fish and the star-fish is well known to most of the fishermen in
Amboyna, and that he was able to obtain a sufficiency of specimens for
examination; but as the star-fishes (and with them the fishes) speedily
died in confinement, he was unable to make continuous observations upon
them in a living state. Of the results of his observations he gives the
following summary:--
"The fish stands to the star-fish in a definite relation which cannot be
the object of observation. Why the little fish should always seek the
stomachal cavity of one and the same species of star-fish, and not that
of various species, is a mystery. It is well known that Crustaceans of
the genus _Pagurus_ inhabit the empty shells of Mollusca; but we find
on the shore the same species of _Pagurus_ in the shells of the most
various genera and species.
"I have never met with _Oxybeles gracilis_, on the contrary, in any
other species of star-fish than _Culcita discoidea_. The fish was
described by Bleeker under the above name in 'Natuurkundig Tijdschrift,'
vii., p. 162. The author proceeds to state that neither he nor any one
else in Amboyna has ever captured the fish under other circumstances, or
while swimming freely in the sea; but upon this Dr Bleeker remarks that
many of his specimens of _Fierasfer Brandesii_, and all those of
_Fierasfer (Oxybeles) gracilis_ and _F. lumbricoides_, were obtained by
him along with other fishes, and were probably taken while swimming
freely in the sea.
"Upon the habits of _Oxybeles gracilis_ the author goes on to say that
it is certain that this animal passes the greater part of its existence
in the stomach of the star-fish, rarely shewing itself outside of this,
and then probably at night. That it does come out occasionally, appears
from the fact that in two cases the author observed the fish with a
portion of its body outside the cavity of the star-fish, and in the act
of creeping in.
"The same observations shewed that the fish, in returning to its
concealment, passes along the furrow of the lower surface of one of the
arms leading to the mouth of the star-fish, which is wide enough, when
the tentacles are retracted, to leave room for the passage of the
slender body of the _Oxybeles_. This fact likewise proves that the
_Oxybeles_ does not get into the stomach of the _Culcita_ by accident.
"If a living _Culcita_ be cut in two, the fish is seen moving freely in
the cavity of its body. If it be taken out, it immediately seeks the
shade. If the two halves of the _Culcita_ (still alive) be placed in the
water, the fish will soon be seen to draw towards them, in order to get
into the cavity of the star-fish. When exposed to the light, it is
uneasy, and its iris contracts excessively. The author never found two
fishes in the same star-fish.
"In most of the fishes examined by him, the author found the stomach
empty; it was full only in one. The contents of the stomach had the
appearance of a lump of fat, and consisted of half-digested muscle.
Under the microscope, striated muscular fibres could be detected, and
the author thinks that they belonged to the muscles of a fish. This
circumstance proves that _Oxybeles_ does not feed upon the chyle of the
star-fish, but that its nourishment is analogous to that of other
fishes. Whether it seizes upon the fishes taken by the star-fish for its
own nourishment must be determined by further investigations.
"The author's observations establish--
"1. That _Oxybeles gracilis_ is not a true parasite.
"2. That it passes the greater part of its life in the stomach of
_Culcita discoidea_, as is also indicated by the unusually pale colour
of the fish.
"3. That, however, it can come out, either to seek nourishment, or for
the purpose of reproduction.
"4. That it returns to the mouth along the furrow on the ventral surface
of the arms.
"5. That it is very sensitive to light.
"6. That it feeds upon other animals.
"In fresh water the animals live for about half-an-hour. The pigment
upon the peritoneum exhibits under the microscope the most beautiful
stellate forms. The fish possesses a swimming-bladder."[232]
Some very curious instances of parasitism occur, in which one kind of
creature compels or induces another creature to labour for its special
benefit. Indeed, in all cases, the parasite is benefited by the
functions of the supporter; but, in the cases I refer to, the slavery is
more special and more apparent.
There is a large species of Crab (_Dromia_) found in the West Indies,
which is invariably found covered with a dense mass of sponge. The
sponge is found to have grown in such a manner as to fit every
prominence and cavity of the crab, exactly as if a plastic material had
been moulded on it, yet it is not adherent to it, but is merely held in
position by the hindmost pair of feet, which in this genus of crabs, are
turned upwards, and apparently serve no other purpose than that of hooks
to hold on the sponge _in situ_.
On our own shores we are familiar with the Hermit crabs making use of
various kinds of univalve shells as houses to protect their softer
hindparts; but in many of these cases there is a third party in the
transaction, which is made to work for the crab's especial advantage.
The shell of the mollusk is sometimes covered with a sort of fleshy
polype-mass (_Hydractinia echinata_), which is parasitic on the shell.
The shell, however, being tenanted also by the active crab, the polype,
as it grows, moulds itself on the crab's body, and thus extends the
dimensions of its house, so that it has no necessity either to enlarge
its dwelling by the absorption of part of the interior shell-wall, or to
leave this shell and search for one of ampler size, as other
Hermit-crabs are obliged to do who have not the advantage of so
accommodating a fellow-lodger. "One can understand," says Dr Gray, "that
the Crab may have the instinct to search for shells, on which the coral
[polype] has begun to grow; but this will scarcely explain why we never
find the [polype] except on shells in which Hermit-crabs have taken up
their residence."[233]
Small Annelids and Crustaceans not unfrequently burrow into the stony
walls of corals; but Dr Gray records a much more uncommon case, from the
Guilding collection. "It is an expanded coral, which forms a thin
surface on the top of another coral, and is furnished with a number of
small, depressed, horizontal cases, opening with an oblong mouth. Some
of these contain within them a small, free, crustaceous animal, a
_Cymothoa_, which nearly fits the case; and it is evident that, by their
moving backwards and forwards on the surface, they have caused the
animal of the coral to form one of these cases for the protection of
each specimen."[234]
The manner in which this result is obtained is thus explained--"The
animals which form their habitation in corals, appear to begin their
domicile in the same way as the barnacles before referred to; they take
advantage of the soft and yielding nature of the animals which form the
corals, &c., and taking up a lodgement in their body, all they have to
do is to keep a clear passage in it, either by the moving backwards and
forwards, the exertion of their limbs, or the ingress or egress of water
to and from their bodies, and in time, as the coral is secreted by the
animal, it will form a wall round them; but if, by any accident, the
parasite animal should not keep a passage from the coral to the surface
of the body of the animal clear, which it must be constantly induced to
do, since by this means it procures food, the coral animal will in a
very short time close over it and bury it alive in the mass of the
coral; and this, from the number of these animals, of all sizes and in
different stages of growth, which are to be found in the substance of
the large and massive corals, must often be occurring. Thus the Italian
romance is often literally fulfilled in nature."
Certain birds are parasitic, in this sense, that they compel or induce
other birds to perform the labour of incubation and of rearing their
young. The Rhea or Ostrich of South America is parasitical on its own
species; the females laying each several eggs in the nests of several
other females, and the male ostrich taking all the cares of incubation.
More familiar examples, however, occur in our own Cuckoo, and in the
Cowpen birds (_Molothrus_ _pecoris_ and _M. niger_) of North and South
America. "These fasten themselves," as has been remarked by Mr Swainson,
"on another living animal, whose animal heat brings their young into
life, whose food they live upon, and whose death would cause theirs
during the period of infancy."
The habit, at least in the case of the European Cuckoo, is so well
known, that I need not do more than merely allude to the fact, that the
female seeks for the nests of other insect-eating birds, always much
smaller than itself, and deposits its own eggs,--a single egg in each;
that this stranger egg is hatched by the foster-mother with all care,
and the young bird is nurtured with all tenderness even at the expense
of its own proper eggs and young, which in general are sacrificed in the
course of the process. Every schoolboy knows these facts, but few
perhaps have ever suspected the existence of a romantic feeling of love
and fealty in the little bird towards the cuckoo herself, prompting the
rendering of the service required as a coveted honour. Yet a naturalist
has communicated to Mr Yarrell some facts which certainly look this way;
and because they are indubitably the very romance of natural history, I
cite them, leaving my readers to judge of their value.
"As you have contributed," writes Mr W. C. Newby of Stockton, "so much
to the information and amusement of the numerous class of readers who
take an interest in subjects of natural history, I consider it my duty
to communicate first to you, what appears to me a new fact in the
habits and character of that general favourite the cuckoo.
"An egg of this bird was brought to me on the 6th instant, which had
been taken from the nest of the yellow bunting, at a short distance from
this town, and the boy who got the egg gave the following account,
which, I think, may be relied on. When bird-nesting the previous
Saturday, he found a nest of the gold spink (a local name for the yellow
bunting) with the young birds just hatched. On visiting the nest the
following day, he flushed the old bird, having seen her sitting on it,
but the young birds were all excluded, and were lying dead near; and to
his surprise, a single egg--the one he brought to me--occupied the place
of the callow brood. He took away the egg (which is now in my
possession) so that it is impossible to corroborate the statement in any
degree. The above circumstance was first named to me by Tom Green, a
well-known character and naturalist in this town, whom I have always
found to be accurate in his observations on birds, and by him I was
referred to the boy. On my objecting to Green that the accident appeared
incredible, because unnatural, and contrary to strong parental instinct,
he replied, "Ay, sir, but little birds are mightily ta'en up with a
cuckoo; they'll awmost dee out for them;" and he related the following
fact which came under his own observation. When out with his gun,
collecting birds to stuff, (animal-preserving being one of his many
trades), he shot at and wounded a cuckoo, which, after flying some
distance, fell upon a hedge with its wings outstretched: the attendant
bird, which in this case was one of the pipits, continued in the flight
of its patron after the shot, and when Green approached, he found it
sitting on the body of the dead cuckoo.[235]
"It has been supposed by some, that small birds follow the cuckoo for
the sake of annoyance, mistaking it for a sparrow-hawk, to give public
notice of a pirate abroad, and to warn all peaceful subjects of the air
against a common danger. But this is clearly not so, for the flight and
cries clearly distinguish the feelings in the two cases. The attendance
on the cuckoo is at a distance, silent and respectful; but in the other
we have a sort of hue and cry raised, as it were, against a felon, and
which is kept up from place to place, if not to the shame, at least to
the discomfiture of the culprit.
"The cuckoo is certainly a favourite with them; as Green says, 'they,
(the lesser birds,) are mightily ta'en up with it;' but to what it owes
its influence with its parasites I leave to you and other philosophical
naturalists to determine: I am content to relate, in simple terms, an
interesting fact."
There is so much analogy with these cuckoo-proceedings in the habits of
Ants, that, although these cannot correctly be designated as parasites,
the details of their manners will not be wholly out of place, in winding
up this chapter. I refer to the propensity manifested by certain species
of ants to make slaves of the workers of another species, leading them
into captivity and compelling them to labour for the benefit of the
marauders. Strangely enough, the parallel between the human and the
formican slave-trade holds to this further extent that, so far as we
know, the kidnappers are red or pale-coloured ants, and the slaves, like
true _niggers_, are black.
The slave-hunting expeditions are planned and executed with the utmost
skill and courage. "When the red ants are about to sally forth on a
marauding expedition, they send scouts to ascertain the exact position
in which a colony of negroes may be found; these scouts, having
discovered the object of their search, return to the nest, and report
their success. Shortly afterwards the army of red ants marches forth,
headed by a vanguard which is perpetually changing; the individuals
which constitute it, when they have advanced a little before the main
body, halting, falling into the rear, and being replaced by others: this
vanguard consists of eight or ten ants only.
"When they have arrived near the negro colony, they disperse, wandering
through the herbage and hunting about, as if aware of the propinquity of
the object of their search, yet ignorant of its exact position. At last
they discover the settlement, and the foremost of the invaders rushing
impetuously to the attack, are met, grappled with, and frequently killed
by the negroes on guard; the alarm is quickly communicated to the
interior of the nest; the negroes sally forth by thousands, and the red
ants rushing to the rescue, a desperate conflict ensues, which, however,
always terminates in the defeat of the negroes, who retire to the inmost
recesses of their habitation. Now follows the scene of pillage; the red
ants, with their powerful mandibles, tear open the sides of the negro
ant-hill, and rush into the heart of the citadel. In a few minutes each
of the invaders emerges, carrying in its mouth the pupa of a worker
negro, which it has obtained in spite of the vigilance and valour of its
natural guardians. The red ants return in perfect order to their nest,
bearing with them their living burdens. On reaching the nest the pupæ
appear to be treated precisely as their own, and the workers, when they
emerge, perform the various duties of the community with the greatest
energy and apparent good will; they repair the nest, excavate passages,
collect food, feed the larvæ, take the pupæ into the sun-shine, and
perform every office which the welfare of the colony seems to require;
in fact, they conduct themselves entirely as if fulfilling their
original destination."[236]
[228] Reinwardt.
[229] Tennent's _Ceylon_, i. 104.
[230] "Affinities of the Stylopites," in _Zool._, 1792.
[231] Wiegmann's _Archiv._, 1860, _Bericht_, p. 169.
[232] _Ann. Nat. Hist._ for April, 1861.
[233] _Zool._, 204.
[234] _Ibid._, 205.
[235] _Zool._, 2589.
[236] Newman, _Hist. of Insects_, 50.
APPENDIX.
ON THE SEA-SERPENT.
Since the publication of my former volume, which concluded with an
examination of the evidence for the existence of this unrecognised
animal, two other important testimonies have been brought under my
notice. The first of these is that of an officer of high literary
reputation, the Consular representative of Great Britain lately residing
at Boston, in the United States, who thus gives his personal testimony
and that of his lady to the appearance of the monster:--
"On a Sunday afternoon in the middle of August, above a hundred persons,
at that time in and about the hotel, were called on to observe an
extraordinary appearance in the sea, at no great distance from the
shore. Large shoals of small fish were rushing landwards in great
commotion, leaping from the water, crowding on each other, and shewing
all the common symptoms of flight from the pursuit of some wicked enemy.
I had already more than once remarked this appearance from the rocks,
but in a minor degree; and on these occasions I could always distinguish
the shark, whose ravages among the "manhaidens" was the cause of such
alarm. But the particular case in question was far different from those.
The pursuer of the fugitive shoals soon became visible; and that it was
a huge marine monster, stretching to a length quite beyond the
dimensions of an ordinary fish, was evident to all the observers. No
one, in short, had any doubt as to its being the sea-serpent, or one of
the species to which the animal or animals so frequently before seen
belonged. The distance at which this one was, for ten minutes or a
quarter of an hour, visible, made it impossible to give a description of
its apparent dimensions so accurate as to carry conviction to the
sceptical. For us who witnessed it, it was enough to be convinced that
the thing was a reality. But one of the spectators, Dr Amos Binney, a
gentleman of scientific attainments, drew up a minute account of it,
which is deposited in the archives of one of the Philosophical Societies
of Boston. I was and am quite satisfied that on this occasion I had a
partial and indistinct but positive view of this celebrated nondescript.
But had the least doubt rested on my mind, it would have been entirely
removed by the event of the day following the one just recorded. On that
day, a little before noon, my wife was sitting, as was her wont, reading
on the upper piazza of the hotel. She was alone. The gentlemen,
including myself and my son, were, as usual, absent at Boston, and the
ladies were scattered about in various directions. She was startled by a
cry from the house of "The sea-serpent! The sea-serpent!" But this had
been so frequent, by the way of joke, since the event of the preceding
day, and was so like "The wolf, the wolf!" of the fable, that it did not
attract her particular attention for a moment or two, until she observed
two women belonging to the family of the hotel-keeper running along the
piazza towards the corner nearest the sea, with wonder in their eyes,
and the cry of "The serpent, the serpent! He is turning, he is turning!"
spontaneously bursting from their lips. Then my wife did fix her looks
in the direction they ran; and sure enough she saw, apparently quite
close beyond the line formed by the rising ground above the rocks, a
huge serpent, gliding gracefully through the waves, having evidently
performed the action of turning round. In an instant it was in a
straight line, moving rapidly on; and after coasting for a couple of
minutes the north-west front of the hotel, and (as accurately as the
astonished observer could calculate) looking as it stretched at full
length in the water about the length of the piazza, that is to say,
about ninety feet; it sank quietly beneath the surface, and was seen no
more.
"The person who was thus so lucky as to get this unobstructed view, is
one so little liable to be led astray by any imaginary impulse, that I
reckon on her statement with entirely as much confidence as if my own
eyes had demonstrated its truth."--_Grattan's Civilised America_, p. 39.
* * * * *
The second testimony is contained in the following communication with
which I have been favoured by Mr Cave:--
35, WILTON PLACE, _April 29, 1861_.
SIR,--On reading your interesting "Romance of Natural History" it
occurred to me that I could supply some corroborative evidence of the
existence of the sea serpent. On looking up my old journals, I found it
was slighter than I imagined; but, such as it is, I give it almost
verbatim from my diary.
I was in Jamaica the year after you were, and have often regretted that
we were not there together, as I might have shewn you parts of the
island which you missed, and have been, perhaps, the cause of a few more
pages to your very pleasant journal of a naturalist there.--Believe me,
faithfully, yours,
STEPHEN CAVE,
M.P. for Shoreham.
Philip H. Gosse, Esq.
_Extract from a Journal written during a Voyage to the West Indies in
1846._
_Thursday, Dec. 10._--Off Madeira, on board R.M.S. "Thames."--"Made
acquaintance with a Captain Christmas of the Danish navy, a proprietor
in Santa Cruz, and holding some office about the Danish Court. He told
me he once saw a sea-serpent between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. He
was lying-to in a gale of wind, in a frigate of which he had the
command, when an immense shoal of porpoises rushed by the ship, as if
pursued; and, lo and behold! a creature with a neck moving like that of
a swan, about the thickness of a man's waist, with a head like a horse,
raised itself slowly and gracefully from the deep, and seeing the ship
it immediately disappeared again, head foremost, like a duck diving. He
only saw it for a few seconds; the part above the water seemed about 18
feet in length. He is a singularly intelligent man, and by no means one
to allow his imagination to run away with him."
THE END.
INDEX.
Æpyornis, 38.
America, early condition of, 8, 32.
Ant-eaters, 9.
Antidotes to poison, 268, 272, 276, 298, 300.
Ants, slave-hunting, 384.
Apteryx, egg of, 38.
Argus pheasant, 323.
Auk, great, 82.
Australia, early condition of, 12.
Aye-aye, 78.
Bamboo, elegance of, 340.
Bananas in Tahiti, 342.
Barbadoes Pride, 353.
Bats, immured, 183, 185.
Bear, black, 70.
Bear, cave, 15, 69.
Beauty, Divine appreciation of, 302
--in quadrupeds, 304
--in birds, 306
--in beetles, 329
--in butterflies, 331
--in plants, 338
--in flowers, 344.
Beaver in Britain, 72.
Beetles, splendour of, 329, 337.
Birds, colossal, of Australia, 13, 34.
Bison of Europe, 68.
Blood rain, 98, 102
--waters, 99, 103
--snow, 100.
Bois Immortel, 354.
Britain, early condition of, 13, 44.
Butterflies, splendour of, 331.
Bruce on serpent-charming, 266, 277.
Cave in Skye, 134.
Changeable colours, 315.
Climbers of tropical forests, 368.
Climbing perch, 123.
Cock of the rock, 307.
Corals, parasitic, 380.
Corncrake, torpidity of, 198.
Cowpen bird, 381.
Crabs, parasitic habits of, 379.
Crane-fly, luminous, 231.
Creation progressive, 89.
Cuckoo, habits of, 381.
Deer, elegance of, 304.
Deposition, rate of geologic, 47.
Dinothere, 5, 14.
Dodo, 74.
Drift, remains in, 44.
Eagle fascinates rabbit, 259.
Eel, wanderings of, 122.
Eggs, fossil, 37, 38.
Elephant of Siberia, 6, 20.
Elk, Irish, 14, 49-57, 61.
Entozoic worms, 360.
Europe, early condition of, 3.
Extinction of species, 1, 81, 88.
Fascination in serpents, 242
--in lizards, 255
--in scorpion, 256
--in stoats, 257
--in fox, 258
--in eagle, 259.
Fig-trees, parasitic, 364.
Fire attracts insects, 260
--birds, 261
--toads, 262.
Fishes, showers of, 109-117
--torpidity of, 118
--travelling, 121
--parasitic, 376.
Flamboyant, 353.
Fleas _ad infinitum_, 359.
Flints, fossil, 44.
Fox of Falkland, 86
--fascinating poultry, 258.
Frogs, showers of, 108.
Galeodes, account of, 237.
Goatsuckers, 307.
Grouse, 95.
Guiana, scenery in, 346.
Hand-tree of Mexico, 87.
Hasselquist on serpent charming, 279.
Hedgehog, immunity of, 277.
Hyena, cave, 16.
Humming birds, elegance of, 312
--mango, 313
--long-tail, 314
--fiery topaz, 317
--comet, 318, 321.
Ibis, scarlet, 306.
Ichneumon-flies, 369.
Impeyan, scaly, 323.
Ireland, animals of, 57.
Kangaroo, giant, 13.
Káureke, 42.
Lantern-fly, 227.
Lepidosiren, 119.
Lightning-tree of Madagascar, 352.
Lizard swallowing its young, 224
--fascinates butterfly, 255.
London-pride, microscopic beauty of, 356.
Luminosity of fulgora, 227
--of mole-cricket, 230
--of crane-fly, 231
--of caterpillars, 232.
Machairode, 15.
Macrauchen, 11, 33.
Mammoth, 6, 14, 20.
Man, fossil relics of, 44.
Mangouste and snake, 275.
Manu-mea, 79.
Marvels, vulgar love of, 96.
Mastodon, 7, 14, 26, 30.
Medusæ, parasites of, 374
--parasitic, 374.
Megathere, 9, 33.
Mermaids, 125
--zoological necessity of, 126
--exhibitions of, 129
--Norse legends of, 132
--narratives of, 136, 139, 141, 142.
Moa, 34.
Mole-cricket luminous, 230.
Music, power of, on Serpents, 284.
Musk-ox, 86.
Mylodon, 9, 32.
Nestor Parrot, 80.
Nile valley, geology of, 46.
Norfolk Island, parrot of, 80.
Notornis, capture of, 41.
Oil-beetle, habits of, 373.
Orchideæ, beauty of, 344
--parasitic habits of, 363.
Ostrich, American, 381.
Oxen, ancient, of Ireland, 63
--of Britain, 65, 67
--of Scania, 66.
Paradise-birds, 326.
Parasitic vegetation, 361
--insects, 369
--medusæ, 374
--fish, 376
--crabs, 379
--polype, 380
--birds, 381.
Parrakeet, Carolina, 306.
Parrot, long-beaked, 80.
Peacock, 325.
Perch, climbing, 123.
Pheasants, 322.
Plants, alexipharmic, 268, 272, 276, 298, 300.
Plume-birds, 309.
Polyplectrons, 324.
Potosi, scenery of, 319.
Psylli, 265.
Rhinoceros of Siberia, 6, 19.
Rhododendrons of India, 349
--of Borneo, 351.
Rifle-bird, 308.
Rio Negro, scenery of, 316.
Saltwort, beauty of, 355.
Scelidothere, 9, 32.
Scenery, remarkable, in Jamaica, 213.
Scorpion fascinates fly, 256.
Sea-serpent, Mr Grattan's evidence, 387
--Mr Cave's evidence, 389.
Serpent-charming, 263-294.
Serpent, crested, 211
--fascinating powers of, 242.
Serpents of Peru, 270.
Showers of blood, 98
--snails, 106
--frogs, 107
--fishes, 109.
Sivathere, 5.
Snails, showers of, 106.
Snake-stones, 294.
Snow, red, 100.
Species, extinction of, 1.
Spiders, bird-eating, 233
--webs of, 236, 238
--beauty of, 336.
Spoonbill, 306.
Star-fish, parasite of, 376.
Stelleria, 78.
Stoats fascinating rabbits, 257.
Strepsiptera, 371.
Stylops, habits of, 371.
Sun-birds, 311.
Swallows, torpidity of, 191-202
--submersion of, 192
--winter appearance of, 202-209.
Tahiti, scenery in, 342.
Tartary, scenery in, 355.
Tertiary geography, 3, 12, 14.
Tiger, beauty of, 305.
Toads, showers of, 107
--in stones, 146, 190
--in trees, 148, 153
--in mortar, 161, 178, 179
--experiments on, 165, 179
--attracted by fire, 262.
Tortoise, colossal, 6, 17.
Toxodon, 12, 32.
Travelling fishes, 121.
Trogon, resplendent, 308.
Urus, 64.
Venom of serpents, experiments on, 249.
Viper swallowing its young, 220.
Wasps, sleep of, 180.
Wolf, 71.
Zebra, beauty of, 305.
BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
By the same Author.
First Series. Third Edition, post 8vo, 7s. 6d. cloth,
THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WOLF.
CONTENTS.
I. TIMES AND SEASONS.
II. HARMONIES.
III. DISCREPANCIES.
IV. MULTUM E PARVO.
V. THE VAST.
VI. THE MINUTE.
VII. THE MEMORABLE.
VIII. THE RECLUSE.
IX. THE WILD.
X. THE TERRIBLE.
XI. THE UNKNOWN.
XII. THE GREAT UNKNOWN.
"This is a charming book.... Every lover of nature, every lover of the
marvellous, every lover of the beautiful, every soul that can feel the
charm of true poetry, must be deeply grateful to Mr Gosse for an
intellectual treat of the highest order.... This 'Romance of Natural
History' will be one of the best gift-books which can be procured for
the season of Christmas and the New Year."--_Daily News._
Crown 8vo, 5s. cloth,
LIFE IN ITS LOWER, INTERMEDIATE, AND HIGHER FORMS:
OR, MANIFESTATIONS OF THE DIVINE WISDOM IN THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
ANIMALS.
BY P. H. GOSSE, F.R.S.
Complete in 4 vols., crown 8vo, 16s. cloth gilt,
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By JAMES HAMILTON, D.D.
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