Chapter III

“Bestimmt Die Gestalt die Lebensweise des Thieres
Und die Weise zu leben sie wirkt auf alle Gestalten
Mächtig Zurück.”—GÖTHE, _Metamorphose der Thiere_.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN FORMS AND HABITS OF ANIMALS.

The most simple observation renders at once apparent a correspondence between the external form of animals, the general direction of their tendencies, and their habits.

Let us examine this question at somewhat greater length. From the age of Aristotle to the present time, zoologists have arranged the almost countless tribes of animals into a number of groups or divisions, more or less related in general habits and structure. All the classifications which have been hitherto proposed may be referred to one or the other of two general principles. Either the colour of the blood (Aristotle), the conformation of the heart (Hunter), the arrangement of the nervous system (Owen), or some other peculiarity of _internal_ structure, has been selected as the basis of arrangement; or the animal creation has been grouped according to certain definite circumstances connected with outward form and configuration. As regards their internal organisation, the variations in the structure and arrangement of the nervous system affords by far the best means of classifying animals, and the whole animal world has accordingly been divided into five primary divisions. We have already endeavoured to prove that the manifestations of mind are only made known to us through the medium of corporeal organs, whatever may be the nature of its essence. By the state of the nervous system volition is modified or controlled, the operation of the senses accelerated or retarded, the muscular movements rendered feeble and uncertain, or strong, vigorous, and energetic; in fine, the chief manifestations of life, thought, volition, and independent motion, are all regulated by the condition and structure of the central nervine masses.

APPENDAGES TO THE TRUNK A KEY TO THE ENTIRE ORGANISATION AND HABITS OF ANIMALS.

The appendages to the trunk, like the arrangement of the nervous system, furnish also a leading peculiarity of structure, and they may be selected as the basis of a classification founded upon outward form. For the most part, destined either for the purposes of locomotion, or to assist in the procuring of food, they must of necessity be in perfect accordance with the nervous and nutritive systems. Hence the capacities, powers, and general habits of an animal, must be in correspondence with this part of its organisation; so that when we are acquainted with the form and arrangement of the extremities of an animal, a key is thereby afforded to its entire organisation. Both its external configuration, its mode of life, and its internal structure, must harmonise, and be in accordance with the arrangement of the extremities. Its breathing and vascular apparatus, its nutritive and generative systems, are thus all indicated to us; and from a knowledge of one particular we may safely and surely predicate the nature of the rest.

_Annelida._—Thus in the worms (_Annelida_), creatures exhibiting but few of the higher manifestations of life, we find the appendages to the trunk in their simplest form,—that of fine, minute bristles attached to the several rings or segments of the body. In the sea-mouse (_Aphrodita_), their bristles attain a somewhat higher developement, each of them being connected with a distinct elevation, or mammillary process, with which it is, as it were, articulated.

_Myriapoda._—In the Centipedes, the first evidence of a well-formed extremity makes its appearance in the form of numerous articulated legs terminated by simple points. These legs, rudimentary in the lowest species (_Iulidæ_), in harmony with their retiring habits and vegetable diet, are divided into distinct joints, and provided with proper muscles, in the strong and carnivorous varieties (_Scolopendridæ_). In these latter animals, the ventral nervous ganglia are also increased in size, in a ratio proportioned to the higher and more complex structure of the appendages to the trunk.

_Insects._—In insects, creatures distinguished by so many and such admirable instincts, and endowed with such active powers of locomotion, the appendages to the body, both legs and wings, are perfectly and beautifully formed. The former, six in number, are attached to the three first thoracic segments of the body, composed of distinct articulations, connected by ligaments and muscles, and furnished with a series of minute breathing tubes, or tracheal ramifications, extending throughout their entire substance. The latter—the wings—vary much in their number, form, and arrangement; and it is upon characters furnished by them that the nearest approximation to a perfect classification of insects—that of Burmeister—is based. Thus, the legs are typical of the class, the wings characterise the orders.

_Arachnida._—In the spider tribe (_Arachnida_) the legs, in their general structure, resemble those of insects; but they are eight in number, and, in addition to them, these creatures are provided with remarkable claw-like appendages to their jaws—mere organs of feeling in the mites, but strong and powerful instruments of prehension in the scorpion tribe.

_Crustacea._—The crab and lobster tribe (_Crustaceans_) are likewise accurately characterised by the appendages to the trunk, the number and disposition of these parts having been employed by Milne Edwards for the purpose of dividing these creatures into a number of orders.

_Mollusca._—Among the mollusks, the classes are nearly all named from the peculiarities in form or the position of the feet. We have the barnacles (_Cirrhopoda_), animals with six pair of articulated flexible arms, composed of a series of small pieces studded with minute hairs, and which form, when they are extended, a species of net by means of which the animal catches its prey. The _Branchiopoda_—creatures such as the _Terebratula_—with two long fleshy arms placed near the mouth, which are hollow, muscular, and disposed in spiral folds. We have the _Tunicata_, such as _Ascidians_ and the _Conchifera_, as the oyster and mussel, beings which are destitute of members, and all but incapable of locomotion. The _Gasteropoda_, of which the slug and snail afford familiar examples, and that are furnished with a locomotive apparatus peculiar to the whole class, and termed the foot or ventral disc. The _Pteropoda_, nearly allied to the _Gasteropoda_ in their internal organisation, but differing from them in the possession of two broad fleshy expansions, resembling fins, which are attached to the side of the neck, and are well adapted for swimming. And, lastly, we have the _Cephalopoda_, such as the nautilus and cuttle-fish, creatures with numerous strong muscular arms attached around the head, and in some species provided with sucking discs, by means of which they are enabled successfully to attack and capture the strongest and most active prey. In all these instances we clearly see that the appendages characterise the class, and that, from an acquaintance with their number and arrangement, a naturalist could readily come to a conclusion as to the affinities, structure, and general habits of any animal in the series.

_Fishes._—The fishes are divided into two great natural orders—those furnished with a bony skeleton and those in which the framework of the body is cartilaginous. The former division are distinguished by the possession of a swimming bladder, and by the nearly equal developement of the parts corresponding to the extremities—the pectoral and ventral fins. The pectoral fins, situated immediately behind the head, are present in all the osseous fishes, traces of them being found even where they might be supposed to be entirely wanting, as in the eel; they do not, however, attain any very considerable size, rarely equalling, and never surpassing, the magnitude of the ventral fins. In the cartilaginous fishes, on the contrary, not only in those which ordinarily remain quiet at the bottom of the water, as the skate, the sole, the flounder, and other flat fishes, but even in the active and voracious sharks we find no swimming-bladder. In these cases, its place is supplied and its duty performed by the enormously developed anterior member or pectoral fin, which greatly surpasses the ventral fin in size; and it is by means of the active movements of this large hand that these creatures raise themselves from the bottom of the water to the surface.

_Reptiles._—In the class of reptiles the characters afforded by the form of the extremities are not less important. Of the four orders into which this class is divided, one—that of the serpents (_Ophidia_)—is altogether destitute of members, with the exception of the rudimentary traces of extremities met with in some few species (_Anguis_, _Bimanes_, and _Seps_). In another order, that of amphibious animals (_Batrachia_), as the frogs, toads, &c., the extremities are still typical of certain peculiarities of organisation. Some of these creatures may be said to remain in an imperfectly developed or embryonic condition during their whole existence. Instead of breathing in adult life by means of lungs, as do the more perfectly organised of the _batrachia_, they retain throughout existence that peculiar structure of the respiratory apparatus—the branchial tufts—which in the latter are present but in the embryo condition. In those of the amphibious animals which breathe by means of permanent branchia (_Perenni-branchiata_), such as the _Lepidosiren_ and the _Proteus_, the extremities are either mere filamentary appendages, or at most but very imperfectly-formed organs, and always typical of their comparatively inferior organisation; while, in the higher species, that is, those provided with lungs, and losing their branchiæ in the adult state (_Caduci-branchiata_), as the frog, the salamander, &c., the extremities are well formed and perfectly developed. The third order of reptiles—that of the lizard tribe (_Sauria_)—is made up of members very dissimilar both in their appearance and general habits. In the aquatic crocodiles the toes are connected by means of a membrane; like ducks and other aquatic animals, these creatures are web-footed. The alligator, so nearly allied to the crocodile in structure and habits, with the exception that it is more terrestrial in its nature, is furnished with a foot the toes of which are only webbed in half their length, the other half being free and unconnected by membrane, their amphibious mode of life being indicated by their foot. If we compare the foot of these creatures with that of the true lizards, the difference of structure will be found to be considerable. The foot of the true lizard is provided with five toes to both the fore and hind members, while attached to the hinder members of crocodiles and alligators we find but four toes. The toes of the lizard are not connected by a membrane, but are separate, and armed with nails, for these creatures live on land, and have need of well-constructed locomotive organs to enable them to catch their active prey. Among lizards, that remarkable animal the chameleon, that is provided with a particular structure of the skin, whereby its change of colour is effected, is distinguished by the possession of a member, the structure of which is not less peculiar. The toes are arranged in two packets, which are capable of being brought into opposition—a structure admirably adapted to the mode of life of the animal—the climbing of trees and shrubs in pursuit of insects. The ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus, creatures of the lizard tribe which have now become extinct, are both characterised by the form of their extremities. The former has four members like paddles, each composed of nearly a hundred small bones of an irregular polygonal shape and arranged in a pavement-like form. The latter has also four paddle-shaped extremities, but the number of bones of which each is composed is much less than in the ichthyosaurus—not above fifty, the pieces being at the same time of a different shape, and not arranged in a tessellated form.

_Birds._—Among birds the foot is a most important organ, serving at once for support, prehension, and locomotion. Its modifications are accordingly very numerous, and ornithologists have employed the characters presented by it as a basis of classification. Scopoli, in his Introduction to Natural History (1777), proposed a systematic distribution of birds into two divisions founded upon the form of the scales covering the foot; thus, some are furnished with scales, small and polygonal (_Retepedes_), while others (_Scutipedes_) have the legs covered in front with unequal semicircular plates. So, again, in the division of birds proposed by Nitzsch, viz. into the aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic, the foot will at once serve to indicate the different orders. We will proceed to examine the special characters afforded by the foot of birds in each of the groups or orders, adopting the classification of Kirby, one of the most recent.

In the first order, the birds of prey (_Raptores_), which includes the eagle, the vulture, the owl, &c., for the purpose of striking their quarry, and of securing it by a firm grasp, a strong muscular foot is necessary, and we consequently find that the foot is provided with four short muscular toes, three placed before, and one behind, all armed with long, sharp, hooked talons, those of the thumb and innermost toe being the longest, as the great duty of grasping is mainly performed by them. The claws are also capable of being drawn back, they are retractile like those of the cat; and the scales upon the upper surface of the foot, as well as the skin covering it below, are strong and tough for the purpose of protecting the member from the attacks of the living prey upon which these creatures feed. The foot is also broadly marked, the kind of marking and the size of the scales being especially characteristic of the different genera and families. In the vultures, which from their feeding on carrion do not require such strength of foot, we find a notable deviation from this general character, the toes becoming longer and slighter and the claws much weaker.

In the second order of birds, the perchers (_Passeres_ of Linnæus), which comprehends sparrows, thrushes, larks, &c., the foot is constructed for another and a very different purpose. Its chief office is to support the bird in a horizontal position upon the boughs and branches of trees and shrubs; hence the foot is long, the toes slender, very flexible, and armed with long, straight, weak claws, which are not at all retractile. All the birds of this order possess four toes, one of which, the hind toe (_hallux_), is placed straight out behind, the others being in front, and those situated externally are connected to the middle ones at their bases. The scales covering the foot are regularly disposed, and as they are not needed for the purpose of defence, they are thin and tender, resembling ordinary scarf skin. Even in the shrikes,—the birds of prey of this order, who feed upon living creatures and use the foot for securing them, the claws are not sharp, nor is the foot formed in such a manner as to ensure a very secure grasp, and we accordingly find that they merely press this organ upon their prey for the purpose of holding it. In a few other families of this order, as the todies, the kingfishers, &c., the foot is called upon to assist in feeding, and we consequently find certain modifications of structure indicative of this office. In order to strengthen the foot and to secure a firmer grasp, the external and middle toes are united almost to the apex, and the strength of the hind toe is considerably increased.

In the third order, the climbers (_Scansores_), or, as they have been sometimes termed, the yoke-footed, to which the woodpecker and the parrot tribe belong, the structure of the foot is modified for the important purpose of enabling the creature to support itself in all positions upon the stems and branches of trees. In order to effect this the foot is made strong, short, and muscular, the claws sharp and curved, and the toes are placed in a very different position to that which they occupy in other orders, two of them being situated in front and two behind. By such a disposition, a strong, secure grasp is afforded; and thus it is that most birds belonging to this order are enabled to climb in a vertical position, and to effect movements like animals of the monkey tribe. In general these birds move very awkwardly upon a level surface, but in one or two species the structure of the foot is so modified that they can run upon the ground with great speed. This is the case with the travellers’ friend of South America, and with the ground parrot of New South Wales; and these creatures have accordingly slender toes so constructed, that one of the two placed behind can be brought in front at will, so that a larger and more secure basis of support is thus afforded.

In the fourth order the scratchers (_Rasores_), to which the common fowl, the pheasant, and the pigeon belong, the foot is adapted for an instrument of active locomotion, as well as for the purpose of procuring food by scratching in the earth. Hence we find it strong, with a long muscular leg, and four toes, three before and one behind, covered with broad scales and armed with short claws. The thumb, so necessary for perching and climbing, is in birds of this order short, rudimentary, and attached high up in the leg, so that the whole foot being placed flat upon the ground, affords a very firm support to the animal.

In the fifth order of birds, the runners (_Cursores_), to which the ostrich, the emu, and the cassowary belong, the structure of the foot is wholly that of a powerful instrument of locomotion. The leg is long, the thigh strong and muscular, and the foot short and compact. The toes which never exceed two or three in number, and of which the second is the largest, are placed all in front, and armed with very short claws, or, as in the African ostrich, with the outer toe destitute of a claw. The scales are limited to the upper surface of the foot, the under surface being flexible and occupied by an elastic pad upon which the member rests. Such a conformation of limb, which would be wholly useless for perching or climbing, is admirably fitted for running—witness the swiftness of the ostrich—a creature equalling and even surpassing the fleetest horse in speed.

In the sixth order, the waders (_Grallatores_), or stilt birds, as the stork, the crane, the heron, &c., the leg is long and slender, and the foot weak and covered with shield-shaped scales. The toes, four in number, are long and straight, three being placed anteriorly, and a shorter one (wanting in the plovers and lapwings) behind; they are frequently palmated at their base, as in the stork; or, as in the middle claw of the heron, toothed or notched like a saw; while sometimes they have a narrow-winged appendage, running along the side, as in the sandpipers. In search of their food, insects and small fish, the individuals of this order frequent marshy places and shallow waters, and many of them, as the stork and heron, are remarkable for the unerring certainty with which they strike and seize their small finny prey.

In the last order, the swimmers (_Natatores_), called also web-footed birds, to which the goose, duck, and gull belong, the foot is modified to assist in swimming. The legs are short; the four toes, all placed in front, are united by a broad membranous expansion, and armed with claws, the thumb being likewise brought in front, so that a greater extent of surface may be given to this oar-like member. A foot thus constructed would be wholly unsuited for perching, running, or grasping, but it is well adapted to the wants and habits of these aquatic birds.

_Mammals._—It is but in animals who suckle their young (_Mammalia_) that the extremities attain their greatest state of developement, and it is in the higher orders alone that they become useful as organs of prehension, their office being limited in most of the lower tribes to support and locomotion. In the lowest order of the series, or whale tribe (_Cetacea_), the members, in the number of pieces of which they are composed, bear a considerable resemblance to the fins of fishes, though they are somewhat differently constructed, according as the animal may be destined exclusively for an aquatic existence, like the common sperm whale, or be more or less herbivorous, and consequently terrestrial in its habits, like the dugong. In the former case, the extremities are converted into broad paddles adapted for swimming, and the feet are webbed; in the latter, the members are better developed, the toes being free, and furnished with nails at their termination.

Of those orders of _Mammalia_ which are provided with four members—the ordinary quadrupeds—some are furnished with a foot which appears to be entirely without toes, their place being supplied by a mass of horny tissue—the hoof. This is the case with the ruminants—animals that chew the cud—as the cow, and with the horse; but in the latter, as the name of the order implies (_Solidungula_), the hoof is solid, while in the ruminants it is cleft; and hence by some naturalists these latter animals have been termed _Bisulca_. Some slight differences are perceptible in the construction of the feet of ruminants: thus the chamois, the antelope, and other of the deer tribe, are furnished with an additional toe, which, projecting backwards, affords a firmer support to the body. In the thick-skinned animals (_Pachydermata_) the toes can hardly be said to be free, being still partially enclosed in the tough skin. It is from characters afforded by the foot that several tribes of animals belonging to this order are mainly characterised: thus the elephant has five toes to each foot, the rhinoceros three, and the hog and hippopotamus four. Among those of the mammalia which are characterised by the presence of four members with distinct and separate toes and nails, but few are furnished with a true hand—that is, a member with a thumb capable of being brought into apposition with the other fingers. Carnivorous animals have either a foot with sharp recurved and retractile claws, as the cat and tiger, or with straight blunt claws, not retractile, as the bear; or the feet are small, almost completely enveloped in the skin, and furnished with a membranous expansion connecting the toes, as in the aquatic seal and walrus, or river-horse: but in all these animals, although the fore-legs may be more or less employed as instruments of prehension, they are not used for the purpose of conveying food to the mouth. In some of the gnawing animals, as the squirrel, the anterior extremity commences to assume the function of a hand; and in a few of the kangaroo tribe, such as the opossum, the hinder extremities are provided with a thumb capable of being brought into apposition with the other toes. The hand of bats, which serves these animals not merely for flying, but also supplies the place of eyes and ears, enabling them to avoid objects during the obscurity of night, is furnished with a sense of touch extremely delicate. It is in man and the monkey tribe only that we meet with a true and perfect hand. In the latter, both the fore and hind extremities are constructed upon the same general principle as the hand of man; and hence these animals have been styled four-handed (_Quadrumana_).

“In man the upper members are disposed in a manner the most favourable for the exercise of their functions as organs of prehension and of touch: the fingers are long and flexible; they have all, with the occasional exception of the ring-finger, separate movements, which other animals (even those provided with hands) have not; the thumb, which is apposable to these latter, is longer in proportion to the fingers than in monkeys, and consequently can more readily apply itself to the extremity of their palm or surface, and better seize small objects. The nails, which are large and flat, cover the back part only of the extremity of the fingers, so as to furnish a support to the organs of touch without in the least depriving them of their delicacy. The entire hand can execute rotatory movements the most extended; and to the arm which supports it is afforded a solid attachment by means of a large shoulder or blade-bone and a long collar-bone.” The statement of Milne Edwards,[3] then, does not appear far removed from the truth, “That the faculties of the _Mammalia_ are the more elevated in proportion as their members are the better constructed for prehension and for touch.”

USE OF A KNOWLEDGE OF THE FORM OF APPENDAGES TO TRUNKS IN GEOLOGY.

A knowledge of the form of the appendages to the trunk of animals is of great service to the geologist, for it has been well and truly said, that the organic remains imbedded in rocks are as medals struck in commemoration of the great revolutions which the earth has undergone, and so small a portion as the extremity of an animal is sufficient to indicate its nature, and to enable us to ascertain the class and order to which it belongs. Let us take a few examples. Some fossil bones were discovered by General Washington near his seat in Virginia. Mr. Jefferson, by whom they were examined, stated that they had belonged to an enormous carnivorous animal, which from the size of its claws he named the _Megalonyx_. Upon an examination more carefully conducted by Cuvier, it was found that in the paw the second bone of the toe was symmetrical, while in animal feeders furnished with retractile claws it is curved, and not symmetrical; the first bone, too, was the shortest, whereas in the lion and others of the feline tribe it is the longest. Whence Cuvier was led to conclude that the creature in question was a sloth of large dimensions, which fed only upon plants.

Upon another occasion, from a careful consideration of the form and size of a toe found in the Palatinate, near Eppelsheim, Cuvier was able to determine that the animal to which it belonged was of the edentate tribe of _Pangolins_. It was from an examination of the hand that Cuvier decided upon the nature of the _Pterodactylus_. This curious animal partook of the nature of both the reptile and the bird. Like the bird, it was furnished with a long neck and a horny beak, but in its jaws and teeth it resembled the crocodile. It had not, however, like the bird, feathered wings without fingers to strengthen them, nor had it a wing in which the thumb alone is free, like that of the bat. Instead of the bony pieces of all the fingers being equally prolonged, the second finger only was extended to a great length, and from it the wing spread out, the other fingers being short and furnished with nails like the toes of ordinary animals. Collini, its discoverer, supposed it to be of marine origin; Soemmerring contended that it was a mammal; but its true place in the animal series was first assigned to it by Cuvier, who has satisfactorily shewn that it is in fact intermediate between a bird and a reptile.

A knowledge of the form of the extremities of animals has been of great service to palæontology in another way—in proving the existence of certain species of animals at given periods of the earth’s formation, from the print of their footsteps left upon the sand or other material of the strata while it was yet in a soft state. Such traces were first observed by Dr. Duncan in Dumfries-shire. On examining a sandstone quarry, he found these prints not on one only, but on several successive layers of the stone; so that they must have been made at periods distant from each other. Similar impressions have been since observed in the Forest marble-beds near Bath, at Hessburg in Saxony, in the State of Connecticut, and in some other parts of the world.

“The marks found in Dumfries-shire, of which there were as many as twenty-four upon a single slab, formed as it were a regular track, with six distinct repetitions of each foot, the fore and hind feet having left different impressions, and even the marks of the claws being discernible. They appear to have been made by some animal of the tortoise kind. At Hessburg the impressions were discovered in quarries of grey and red sandstone alternating; and the marks were both larger and more distinct than those found in Scotland. In one the hind foot measured twelve inches in length, and the fore foot always appeared much smaller than the hind. From this circumstance, and from the distance between the two being only fourteen inches, it is conjectured that the animal was a marsupial like the kangaroo, and it has been termed by Dr. Kaup _Chirotherium_, from the supposed resemblance of the four toes and turned-out thumb to a hand. In the State of Connecticut, near Northampton, footsteps differing exceedingly in size have been found in inclined strata of sandstone. They were evidently made before it assumed its present position. The marks are always in pairs, and the tracts cross each other like those of ducks on the margin of a muddy pond. One is of the length of fifteen or sixteen inches, and a feathery spur or appendage appears to have been attached to the heel, eight or nine inches long. The distance between the steps is proportioned to their length, but in every case the pace appears to have been longer than that of the existing species of birds to which they approach nearest—the ostrich, and the animal must consequently have been proportionably larger. How much larger he was than the ostrich may be gathered from this, that the large African ostrich has only a foot ten inches long, less than two-thirds that of this bird, and yet stands nine feet high. These proportions would give a height of fourteen feet to the extinct animal.”[4]

The characters afforded by the foot have recently enabled Mr. Strickland to determine that the dodo, a bird now extinct, is not related either to the gallinaceous birds,—the vulture or the ostriches as some have conjectured,—but is closely allied to the pigeons.

From this cursory examination of the animal world we may gather the important conclusion, that from the structure of an extremity we may obtain a complete insight into the entire organisation of an animal; and thus the paws furnished with sharp retractile claws of the lion indicate at once to a naturalist its strong teeth, its powerful jaws, and its muscular strength of limb; while from the cleft foot of the cow, the complicated structure of its stomach, the definite peculiarities of its jaws, and its vegetable diet, may with equal certainty be predicated.

Thus, as Paley justly observes, “In the swan, the web foot, the spoon bill, the long neck, the thick down, the graminivorous stomach, have all a relation to one another, inasmuch as they all concur in one design, that of supplying the occasions of an aquatic fowl, floating upon the surface of shallow parts of water, and seeking its food at the bottom. Begin with any one of these peculiarities of structure, and observe how the rest follow it. The web foot qualifies the bird for swimming, the spoon bill enables it to graze. But how is an animal, floating upon the surface of pools of water, to gaze at the bottom except by the mediation of a long neck? And a long neck is accordingly given to it. Again, a warm-blooded animal, which was to pass its life upon water, required a defence against the coldness of that element. Such a defence is furnished to the swan in the muff in which its body is wrapped. But all this outward apparatus would have been in vain if the intestinal system had not been suited to the digestion of vegetable substances.”[5]

And, again, of the mole: “The form of the feet fixes the character of the animal. They are so many shovels; they determine its action to that of rooting in the ground; and every thing about its body agrees with this destination. The cylindrical figure of the mole, as well as the compactness of its form, arising from the terseness of its limbs, proportionally lessens its labour; because, according to its bulk, it thereby requires the least possible quantity of earth to be removed for its progress. It has nearly the same structure of the face and jaws as a swine, and the same office for them. The nose is sharp, slender, tendinous, strong; with a pair of nerves going down to the end of it. The plush covering, which, by the smoothness, closeness, and polish of the short piles that compose it, rejects the adhesion of almost every species of earth, defends the animal from cold and wet, and from the impediment which it would experience by the mould sticking to its body. From soils of all kind the little pioneer comes forth bright and clean. Inhabiting dirt, it is of all animals the neatest.”