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No.

21. The Otter.

22. The Esquimaux Dog.

23. The Jackal.
24. The Fennec.
25. The Ichneumon.

26. The Striped Hyena.
27. The Leopard.
28. The Jaguar.
29. The Opossum.

30. The Kangaroo.

31. The Harvest Mouse.

32. The Jerboa.

33. The Beaver.

34. The Porcupine.

35. The Chinchilla.

36. The Aï, or Three-Toed Sloth. 37. The Armadillo.

38. The Great-maned Anteater. 39. Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus. 40. Skeleton of the Elephant. 41. Skeleton of the Horse.

No.

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THE

BOOK OF QUADRUPEDS.

66

INTRODUCTION.

"O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all the earth is full of thy riches," Psa. civ. 24. Such was the declaration of the inspired psalmist; and surely in the works of the Almighty we have before us a book, every page of which presents to the Christian reader abundant and astonishing proofs of the wisdom, power, and goodness of Him, who said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" "who weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;" "who led Joseph like a flock;" and who condescends to be the Father and Friend of his people in all generations. If, Christian, this great and holy God is thy Father and thy Friend, thou wilt not behold the wonders of his hands with indifference: and as we all look with emotions of pleasure and love upon the hand-writing of an earthly friend or an earthly father, so wilt thou contemplate with admiration and gratitude the characters, more eloquent than speech, with which He has impressed the face of

nature.

stand. Here he is led by the hand of Nature, and he leaves the city and the mart, and all the pageantry of artificial life-he leaves the turmoil, the follies, and the crimes of an agitated world, and goes forth into the green fields, and wanders by the river's flowery brink, or through the tangled wood, in holy and peaceful contemplation. To him the bounding deer, the crouching hare, the linnet carolling from the brake, the turtle cooing in the woodland gloom, the woodpecker tapping the aged tree, the kingfisher darting like a meteor down the stream, or the little warblers of the hedge-row, are objects of interest; the nimble lizard as it rustles through the leaves, the chirping grasshopper, and the busy insect tribes of brilliant hues, that glitter like diamonds in the sun, the active murmuring bee, the shard-born beetle that winds "his low but sullen horn "all have claims on his attention, all are objects of contemplation, all lead him to the Cause of causes; for he forgetteth not His power who made and governs all-His, the eternal WORD, who was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God, and without whom was not any thing made that was made.

The student of nature beholds every where an order, a balance, a harmony, the contemplation of which expands the intellect, produces a love of order, and habits of patient research: he is not content with a careless glance over what God has pronounced good, but he loves to trace His power and goodness with a more observant eye-His power, which is displayed as much in an insect's wing as in the pinions of the eagle, or the limbs of the gigantic elephant.

The study of Natural History is full of pure delights and solid advantages: the order, the design, and balance observable in its laws, the combinations of structure and mechanism with which they are associated, the ends to be obtained, and the simplicity of the means for obtaining them, are all so many proofs of Divine wisdom and superintendence. We look with delight, and with the more delight as we understand the more, on the beautiful and complicated machinery of our manufactories, which seems to perform so many labours as it were by enchantment; but in An acquaintance with nature leads also to a Natural History we behold a scheme more vast, a kindly feeling for all that God has created. How structure more curious, operations more compli- often does man exercise his wanton cruelty upon cated, ends more important, means more adapted, the dumb creatures, over whom he is placed as and laws more profound. Here the Christian a master, and not a tyrant! but were he to philosopher, as he explores the mines of research, familiarize himself with the instincts and habits or investigates the various phenomena, the laws of the animated beings below him, he would learn or habits of the tribes that people earth and air, to regard them with sympathy and forbearing will feel a calm and pure delight, unmixed with pity. He would remember God's mercy to him, the baser passions, which the man of the world, unworthy and covered with guilt; he would in his pursuit of riches, or empty honours, or remember what God has done for him; he would vain applause, can neither experience nor under-remember the benevolence of his Lord and

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Master, who, while he proclaimed his abounding love for his people, whom he has ransomed with his blood, expressed his care also for the commonest bird of the house-top. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered," Matt. x. 29, 30.

Christian reader, reflect on God's mercy to you; he has not dealt with you according to your sins, but he has held out to you offers of pardon; he has not rewarded you according to your iniquities, but he has provided a Saviour, an allsufficient one, in whose atoning blood there is presented to the guiltiest a fountain for sin and uncleanness; and by whose intercession we have access to the throne of grace. Such is God's free mercy and love to you. Imitate this great and glorious example, and, as thou hast obtained mercy, be merciful to all that breathes.

"I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
The inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd,

Will tread aside, and let the reptile live."-Cowper.

All natural objects with which we are acquainted by means of our senses, and which constitute this globe, and all upon its surface, are separated into TWO GREAT DIVISIONS, OF GENERAL CLASSES; namely, the ORGANIC, and the INORGANIC, distinguished by the laws which draw a decided line between them, the boundaries of which are precise and defined.

The organic division comprehends all bodies endued with vitality. The inorganic, those not possessing this principle. To the former, therefore, belong animals and plants; to the latter, all other bodies cognizable by our senses.

Animals are natural bodies, organized, living, and sentient.

Vegetables are natural bodies, organized and living, but not sentient.

All other bodies are neither organized, nor living, nor sentient.

The phenomena manifested by all organic bodies are the result of an inherent power, which the allwise God has associated to such combinations of matter, and which is generally termed vital principle-a power, the essence of which is enveloped in mystery, excepting as revealed to us in the Scriptures. The general results of this power may be said to consist in a concatenation or vortex of complicated internal movements or actions, having no relation to the laws of chemistry or mechanics, and which, enduring for a certain definite period, produces those external characters by which we at once know an organized being; namely, its essential shape and structure, its growth, by the absorption and assimilation (or conversion into a part of itself) of extraneous matter, and its power of resisting, during an appointed time, the influence of external agents.

Hence, organic bodies seem to maintain a perpetual struggle with the elements around them, perpetually resisting and making good the losses which their actions and influences occasion;

perpetually throwing off those particles which are no longer fit for the keeping up of the body's integrity, and taking up others, which they mysteriously convert into a portion of themselves; perpetually labouring till death.

Inorganic matter does not increase by powers within itself, or resist external agents by the operations of a vital principle. Its laws are those only of mechanics, chemistry, and electricity.

Organic bodies, then, comprehend animals and plants; and between these two great classes, which possess the common properties of vitality, there are several characteristic distinctions:

1. The power of voluntary motion, which animals in the aggregate possess, demands an according modification of the organs of nutrition; and hence is derived their first and leading character, namely, an internal apparatus for the reception of food, in which it undergoes certain changes before its admission into the system-an admission effected by a multitude of minute tubes or vessels, all originating in the inside of this apparatus. Plants are rooted to one spot; they cannot employ voluntary motion in the search or reception of food; they have no internal digestive apparatus, and the absorbing tubes of nutrition all arise from the external surface. The aliment taken in by animals has to undergo various operations before it forms a juice proper for absorption; but the atmosphere and the earth present to vegetables juices already prepared, and which may be absorbed immediately.

2. Animal bodies, as they have functions more numerous and varied than plants, possess, with a structure accordingly more complicated, a circulatory system, (comprehending the arteries and veins,) by which their fluids are circulated, not, as is the case with plants, by the influence of heat and atmospheric action, but by internal innate energies. This system is, however, less essential than the digestive, because not necessary to, nor to be found in animals of the most simple organization.

3. Animals differ from plants in the chemical analysis of their constituent principles. The essential elements of organized matter appear to be carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and azote or nitrogen, together with alkaline and earthy salts. Now, the solid parts of all plants contain carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, but no azote. The solid parts of animals consist principally of lime or magnesia, united with carbonic or phosphoric acids. And in those beings of both kingdoms, which appear to be destitute of solid parts, the difference is even still more wide; the gum or mucilage of soft plants exhibiting no trace of azote, which enters as a constituent into the gelatine or albumen of soft animals.

4. Atmospheric air and water are the two sources whence the plant derives the principles necessary for the maintenance of vitality. Water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen; air, of oxygen, azote, and carbonic acid, which is a combination of oxygen and carbon.

Now, of these elements, the vegetable retains, as essential to its composition, the carbon, the hydrogen, and a part of the oxygen, and exhales or throws out the azote and superfluous volume of oxygen. The essential function, indeed, of vegetable life seems to be the exhalation of oxy

INTRODUCTION.

gen, an operation requiring the presence of that universal stimulus of nature, light.

The principles of vegetable composition, namely, carbon and hydrogen, enter also as a source of mediate or immediate nutriment into the composition of animal bodies. But the constitution of animals demands that a great portion of this hydrogen and carbon should be got rid of from time to time, and that azote should be absorbed. This operation is effected through the medium of the atmosphere, the oxygen of which, combining with the carbon and hydrogen of the blood, is exhaled with them in the form of carbonic acid and water, the azote appearing to remain. According to the experiments of Dr. Edwards, an absorption and discharge of azote is perpetually going on; the discharge varying according to habit, constitution, or the circumstances to which an individual may be subjected.

Plants and animals may thus be said to become mutual sources for the production of the elements each requires; the relations they bear to the atmosphere are inverse. The former demand water and carbonic acid, the latter produce it. Animals demand oxygen, and the vegetable creation is perpetually exhaling it.

And shall we not admire the wisdom of God, shall we not pay our tribute of adoration to Him "who hath done all things well?" Wonderful and mysterious as is the plan which we see displayed in the laws of organized beings, there is a plan, reader, still more wonderful and more mysterious, and which exhibits more fully the boundless wisdom and goodness of God a plan by which justice and mercy are reconciled-the plan of man's salvation, the results of which will outlive the laws of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and the great globe itself.

Having thus separated between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, it is not our purpose to enter into the details of animal physiology, which, although it unfolds in a most striking manner the glorious power and design of the Almighty, would carry us beyond our prescribed limits; but we shall proceed at once to the general divisions under which the scientific men of our day have arranged all that has a claim to animal existence. In so doing we propose to take Cuvier for our guide.

The woods and fields resound on every side with the cries and voices of creatures, varying in form and nature; the air is peopled with busy tribes that wander through its boundless regions; the wing of the bird rustles as it passes us, and myriads of insects are dancing in the sun; the waters teem with life; the ocean, the mighty ocean is replete; even the "drop upon the bucket" is a lake to multitudes of animalcules, that rejoice and multipy in its mimic floods, or pine and die as it evaporates. We cannot pluck a leaf from a tree, and examine it, but we discover it to be a little world, peopled with pigmy inhabitants, that play their part in the balance of creation, a part which may, indeed, escape the research of the philosopher, but which infinite wisdom has appointed. Diversified, however, and multitudinous as they are, they admit of arrangements or classifications which unravel the intricacy of the subject, and divest the study of its apparent difficulties. It was a want of this

3

system which has rendered the works of the ancients, on natural objects, little more than records of disjointed facts, or opinions, without mutual bearing, or order, or plan, and without a definite end. Hence the little comparative progress in the natural sciences, and the mistakes and absurdities which we find to have prevailed among nations the most civilized and refined. Modern science received a new impetus from the writings of Bacon, Ray, and Linnæus, which has regulated inquiry, and introduced method and order. Among the philosophers of modern times Cuvier is pre-eminent, and his general outline is that which is now most commonly received. He divides the animal kingdom into four grand divisions; namely,

1. Animalia Vertebrata.

Vertebrate animals, having a brain inclosed in an osseous covering, or skull, and a vertebral column.

2. Animalia Molusca.

Moluscous animals, without any internal skeleton, but whose muscles are attached to a soft skin, often enclosed in a hard case or shell of lime.

3. Animalia Articulata.

Articulated animals, in which the body is divided by transverse folds into a certain number of rings; the integuments are sometimes hard, sometimes soft; but the muscles are always attached to the interior; the trunk is often fur

nished with many limbs, consisting of numerous joints, but is often also deficient ; such are insects, crustaceous animals, as lobsters, etc.

4. Animalia Radiata.

Radiate animals, or zoophytes, in which the organs of movement are not disposed symmetrically on each side, but consist of an uneven number, disposed like rays round a centre; they possess no nervous system, nor particular organs of sense, barely traces of a circulation, and approach in their structure the homogeneity of plants.

Vertebrate animals (Animalia vertebrata) are distinguished by an internal osseous frame-work, or skeleton, which affords solidity and support. Their body is composed of a head, trunk, and limbs: the head consists of the skull, which incloses and protects the brain; and of the face, which embraces the organs of taste, smell, sight, and hearing. The head rests upon, or is attached to the vertebral column, which is composed of a number of bones moveable one on another, and forming altogether a canal for the medulla oblonThe limbs never exgata, or spinal marrow. ceed four, and are in pairs; but sometimes one The blood is pair is wanting, sometimes both. always red.

This great family is divided into four classes:

1. Mammalia, or Mammiferous animals.
2. Aves, or Birds.

3. Reptilia, or Reptiles.

4. Pisces, or Fishes.

The first of these classes is the most interest

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IX.-Cetacea.

Body constructed for inhabiting the water; limbs consisting of an anterior pair only, forming paddles or oars; the teeth variable: in some cases there are only horny laminæ instead.

As the class Mammalia (and it is the case throughout every other) contains groups of animals, which present common agreements in form and structure, and common dissimilarities from other groups, we are led naturally, as it were, or by an involuntary operation of the mind, to institute a series of sections, in each of which those animals are thrown together which have a mutual resemblance to each other in certain pro-associated group, having certain essential points minent characteristics. These sections are termed orders. The following Table exhibits the arrangement of Cuvier, and most naturalists of the present day, and is that which is generally received.

TABLE OF THE ORDERS OF THE
CLASS MAMMALIA.

SECTION I.

THE FINGERS AND TOES FURNISHED WITH NAILS.

ORDER I.-Bimana.

Extremities four; of which only the posterior are adapted for progression, and the anterior terminated by hands; the teeth are of three kinds; the body in its natural attitude vertical.

II.-Quadrumana.

Each order, as we have seen, is composed of an

in common, which draw around it, so to speak, a line of circumvallation. Still in each order, thus constituted, numerous but minor points of difference exist, by which numbers may be mutually distinguished; and as many as thus agree are separated into genera. Genera includes species, which have each their especial characteristics.

ORDER I.-BIMANA.

Extremities four; of which only the posterior are adapted for progression, and the anterior terminated by hands; the teeth are of three kinds; the body in its natural attitude vertical.

THIS order includes but one genus, and that genus but one species-MAN.

"And God said, let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness." "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God The extremities four, all terminated by hands; created He him; male and female created He the teeth of three kinds.

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them."

Man was created the last and most excellent of God's mighty works. Confining our attention to him in a merely physical point of view, he is the most perfect of all terrestrial beings; not, indeed, in size or animal strength, for in these qualities many excel him, but in the refined, the exalted plan and model upon which he is constructed. The eagle, it is true, may have a more powerful vision; the hare be more alive to every sound; the wild dog or vulture catch the faintest scent upon the gale; but in Man there is a nice balance, an adjustment, a felicitous accuracy of the senses, which thus expressly tend to his elevation and happiness; and, at the same time that they minister to his pleasure, enable him to obtain an

Extremities four; the teeth of two kinds, in- intimate and minute acquaintance with the procisores and molares.

VI.-Edentata.

Teeth more or less deficient; the incisores always wanting, and sometimes both the canine and molares.

SECTION II.

FEET DEFENDED BY HOOFS.

ORDER VII.-Pachydermata.

Limbs four, and furnished with hoofed toes, variable in number; the stomach not construct

perties of the world around him. Hence the voice of melody; the colours of earth and sky; the odours of spring; the fruits of summer; the glorious sun, and the spangled canopy of heaven, are sources of gratification and delight to him. Language, in which he can convey his wants, his desires, and the most abstract ideas of his mind, is his alone; and his alone are reason, and an immortal soul.

While, however, on the topic of Man's physical superiority, we cannot omit noticing a few circumstances, because peculiar to Man, at once proclaiming his own dignity and his separation

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