Some animals are furnished with peculiar glands and bags at the end of the rectum, which secrete and contain a remarkably fetid substance; and this substance the animal can at pleasure throw out against its pursuers. The zurilla, a species of weazel about the size of a rabbit, found in several parts of South America, emits, when angry, such a pestilential vapour as beats off the most formidable adversary. Another inconveniency, says De Pages, which awaits the traveller in this country (between St. Antonio and Mexico), is the abominable smell of an animal, without the agility, but nearly of the size of a rabbit. This creature, when hardly pressed and in jeopardy of being taken, emits a most intolerable stench, which threatens suffocation to his pursuers, and which is eluded only by a precipitate flight. The squash, or Armenian polecat, when pursued or irritated, squirts upon its pursuers an excrementitious liquor of so horrible a smell that neither man nor dog can endure it.

Birds by their different ways of flying often escape from their enemies. If the pigeon had the same way of flying as the hawk, it could scarcely ever escape his claws.

If, from the earth and the air, we pass to the ocean, we shall find its inhabitants possessing, in like manner, means of defence and safety. The cuttle-fish, when closely pursued, ejects a fluid black as ink, and conceals itself and escapes by discolouring the water. The excretory duct of the bag which contains this singular secretion opens near the anus. The fluid itself is thick, but so miscible with water that a small quantity of it discolours a considerable body of water. According to Cuvier, the Indian ink is made of this fluid. Some fishes have fins so large and flexible, that, when pursued, they can spring out of their native element, and dart through the air to a considerable distance.

Some of the inhabitants of the water possess peculiar means of defence, by giving electrical 'shocks. The electrical fluid is widely diffused in nature; and seems to be lodged, in greater or less quantities, in all animals. That there is a considerable portion of it in the human body is evident. Some persons are naturally so much electrified as to give obvious signs of the presence of this fluid, when a delicate electrometer is applied to them; and if their hair is combed, when they are placed on an insulating stool, they emit sparks. But only a very few animals have the power of giving shocks. So far as is at present known, they are all of the aquatic kind: the torpedo, gymnotus electricus, and silurus electricus.

This property of the torpedo has been known since the

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days of Theophrastus. It has the power of giving a smart shock to the person who touches it. According to Humboldt and Guy Lussac, the contact must be immediate. The shock depends on the will of the animal, which must be irritated before it exerts its peculiar power. The electrical apparatus of the torpedo has some resemblance to a galvanic trough, and seems to act in a similar manner.

The gymnotus electricus is a species of eel peculiar to Surinam river, and is said to be a fresh-water fish only. When of the largest size it is about four feet long, and from ten to fourteen inches in circumference in the thickest part of the body. Its electrical power is greater than that of the torpedo. It gives even the most violent shocks without any movement of the head, eyes, or fins. But when the torpedo gives a shock, a convulsive motion of the pectoral fins may be observed.

The silurus electricus, a fish about twenty inches long, found in some of the rivers of Africa, gives a shock like the torpedo and gymnotus. By means of this singular power, these animals can stun their adversaries and escape by flight.

Insects appear a feeble race; but some of them possess formidable means of defence and annoyance. Their sting is a spear, which they can wield with dexterity in repelling aggression. The fine polish of this little piece of armour has often been remarked, and adduced as an instance of the difference between the workmanship of the Creator and the productions of art. When viewed through a microscope, the point of the finest needle seems rough and blunt; but the sting of a bee, when examined by the glass, is seen to be smooth and beautifully polished. The first displays all its beauties to the naked eye; the instrument reveals its deformities: but the beauty of the last appears the more conspicuous the more narrowly it is inspected. In short, every animal is endued, in a greater or less degree, with the means of self-preservation. If any species be singularly exposed to danger it has the advantage of some great compensating principle, by which it is preserved from extinction. Many of the weaker or more timid animals can elude pursuit by the rapidity of their motions: some are very prolific and can bear a great waste. Here, as in every other department, we see a uniformity of plan, which can only be the fruit of design; and such an adaptation of means to ends as can result from nothing but benevolent intention.

IV. There is a great variety in the tastes and appetites of different kinds of animals; and there is a corresponding

variety in the productions of the earth. There seems to be nothing in the wide extent of the vegetable kingdom, but what will yield sustenance to animals of one kind or other. Each species finds food agreeable to its taste and proper to its nature, and animals of one class cannot deprive those of another of their means of subsistence. According to Linnæus, the hog eats 72 kinds of vegetables; the horse 262; the cow 276; the sheep 387; and the goat 449. This diversity of tastes, with the corresponding diversity of productions, is one great means of stocking every part of the earth and of the ocean with inhabitants. Some animals, both by sea and land, are formed only in certain latitudes. Some dwell in polar regions; others chiefly within the tropics; and each finds its peculiar aliment in the place where it resides.

Animals are wonderfully fitted for discovering their means of subsistence. In selecting their food, they rely chiefly on smelling, and this sense does not deceive them. They easily distinguish between the noxious and the salutary, avoiding the one and feeding on the other. Some animals, such as wolves and ravens, discover their food at a distance, which, if we were to judge from our own sense of smelling, would appear altogether incredible. Others, as the eagle, the hawk, and the gull, have an amazingly acute eye; and, from a great height, perceive mice, birds, and other objects of prey.

As the different kinds of animals are admirably qualified for discovering their food, so they are well formed for gathering or seizing it. In graminivorous quadrupeds, there is a remarkable correspondence between the length of the legs and that of the neck. We do not find a very short neck in connection with long legs. The ox, the horse, and the sheep, are examples of the proportions of those different parts of the body. In some of the deer kind, indeed, the neck does not bear the same proportion to the legs, as in the animals now mentioned; but they obtain their food chiefly by browsing on the branches of trees, in which case there is no need for a length of neck corresponding to the legs. They can easily pasture on an ascent; and Vaillant assures us that even the giraffe, the most remarkable of this tribe, is able to drink from a stream, the surface of which is lower than the ground on which he stands.

Monkeys are destined to live on trees; and their four prehensile members enable them to climb with the greatest facility. The tail of several kinds is a farther assistance in this way of life. The natural food of swine is chiefly the roots of plants: and they have a snout fitted for digging

up the earth. The goat is formed for ascending rocky precipices, to crop the leaves of those herbs and plants on which he delights. The squirrel feeds on the leaves and fruit of trees; and he is provided with feet which fit him for climbing. Woodpeckers have strong, wedge-like bills, for piercing the bark of trees; and they are provided with a long slender tongue, armed with a sharp bony point, barbed on each side, which, by means of a curious apparatus of muscles, they can dart out to a great length into the chinks of the bark, or into the holes which they have formed with their bills, in order to transfix and draw out the insects lurking there. Their legs and feet are admirably formed for climbing, and even the tail is made to co-operate for the same purpose.

The tongue of the chameleon displays a very curious mechanism. It is contained in a sheath at the lower part of the mouth, and has its extremity covered with a glutinous secretion. It admits of being projected to the length of six inches from the mouth, with wonderful celerity and precision; and the viscous secretion on its extremity entangles the flies, and other similar insects, which constitute the food of the chameleon. Water fowls feed upon fish, insects, and eggs of fish; and their bills, legs, wings, and whole structure, are fitted to their manner of life. The size and strength of the wings correspond with the circumstances of the different kinds of fowls. Birds of prey, which must often seek their food at a distance, have large and strong wings; but in domestic birds, which can find nourishment almost everywhere, the wings are short and small.

Were we to run over the organs of all animals for procuring their food and seizing their prey, from the trunk of the elephant to the blood-sucking apparatus of the gadfly, we should everywhere meet with the most astonishing adaptations, and displays of the most consummate mechanical skill. We see a vast variety of food provided; a corresponding variety of tastes for enjoying it; and all animals furnished in one way or other with organs for taking possession of it. And is this vast, various, and complicated system the work of chance? Is not design, yea are not wisdom and goodness obvious in the provision made for the sustenance of the different kinds of animals, in correspondence to their different tastes and appetites ? The food does not form the taste; but the taste directs to the use of the food. Some animals could not live on that which is grateful to the palate of others; and although the animal, in a number of instances, might

support a lingering existence on the food which it does not choose, yet, in these cases, it would neither attain the vigour of its nature, nor the usual term of its life. According to all our conceptions, nothing but a designing Being could have furnished provisions suitable to the nature of every animal, and formed each animal with fit organs for gathering that provision.

V. In many instances we find surprising adaptations of animals to peculiar circumstances. Under this head, I shall confine my observations to the camel and the rein-deer; the one a native of the arid plains in the warm and temperate regions of Asia and Africa; the other an inhabitant of high latitudes. The camel is found in warm climates, and on parched and sandy plains; and the structure of his body, and his habits, are accommodated to the circumstances in which he is placed. In the regions which he inhabits, the earth is seldom refreshed with showers; and, in many cases, only a few stunted shrubs or herbs appear in the midst of the sandy wilderness, or around the wells which are thinly scattered in the desert. In this situation, his place could not be supplied to man by any other animal. "The sand," says Denon, "is truly his element; for as soon as he quits it and touches the mud, he can hardly keep upon his feet, and his constant trips alarm the rider for his own safety and that of his baggage." His rough and spongy soles are excellently fitted for traversing the ocean of sand: they do not crack with the heat.

Besides the four stomachs common to ruminating animals, the camel is furnished with a fifth, which serves as a reservoir for containing water. It is peculiar to this animal, and is so capacious that, according to Bruce, it can contain water sufficient to serve him for thirty days. Russell, in his Natural History of Aleppo, mentions a Bassora caravan, in which the camels remained fifteen days without water; but he adds, that the Aleppo and Bassora caravans are seldom more than three or four days without finding wells; although, at times, when obliged to leave the common track, the camels suffer an abstinence of six or seven days. The fifth stomach preserves the water in a state of perfect purity and limpidity, without permitting any part of the aliment, or of the fluids of the body, to mix with it. In traversing the vast burning deserts, which without his aid no human power could pass, when the camel is pressed with thirst, or has occasion for water to macerate his dry food in ruminating, he makes part of the water mount into his paunch, or even as high as the cesophagus, by the contraction of certain muscles. His sto