Herrings breed in the Arctick rent shells-120 to the inch; and Ocean, and in April and May pass also other animalculæ, as three in immense shoals through the Brit- kinds of worms, &c. They turn ish Seas, followed by fishes and over with the tide. The sea-star, birds of prey. The Dogger Bank in men, cockles, and muscles are their the North Sea, 190 miles long, is the enemies. favourite resort of these and of tur t, cod, soles, &c. Other banks in the same sea, from Holland to the Shetland Islands, are also resorts of fish. In the Bahamas the violet crab lives in the mountains, but spawns in the sea, and travels there for the purpose; after which the young crabs travel to the mountains. Marmots cut, make, and carry hay for their nests. Swallows stay in England from 22 to 26 weeks. Other birds from the arctick circle pass their winter with us and breed there, as the auk, the woodcock, snow-bunting, &c. which pass to Lapland, Greenland, &c. Some migrate by night and others by day, Cock-chafers, so cruelly abused and the males go before the females by untaught children, are such pets as is well known to bird catchers. of nature, that they are six years in Some of them are supposed to trathe grub state advancing to matu-vel at the rate of 150 miles an hour, rity. Eggs are hatched at 104° of heat. Hives yield from 60 to 100 lbs. of honey in a season. At Coppermine River fish were so frozen as to break with the blow of a hatchet; but if others were thawed before the fire, they revived. Spiders have four paps for spinning their threads, each pap having 1000 holes; and the fine web is itself the union of 4000 threads. No spider spins more than four webs, and when the fourth has been destroyed, they seize on the webs of others. Perfectly white cats are deaf. Young eels migrate from salt water to fresh through every obstruction. The water beetle which lives on the spawn of fish, is said to convey it from one pond to another. In Upper Canada travellers go in cars drawn by three dogs. A fish in Java called the jaculator, catches flies and insects by squirting from its mouth some water, and seldom misses its aim at the distance of five or six feet, bringing down a fly with a single drop.-Mitchel. Earthworms are said to restore themselves after being cut with a spade. A snail's head and horns grow again in six months. An eye of a water newt is replaced in ten months. and most of them start when the wind is fair. At this rate, swallows, &c. would reach the African coast in a day, and the German ocean would be crossed in a morning. The accidents of the journey and of the country thin their numbers, for fewer return than go; as population has increased some do not return at anciently, there were many in Engall, as egrets, cranes, &c. of which, land. M. Hanhert "aw a regular battle between two species of ants, in which they drew up in lines of battle, with reserves, &c. &c. and fought for four hours, taking prisoners, and removing the wounded till victory decided for one party. The poor scals have found advocates in the phrenologists, the size of their brains indicating extraordinary intelligence, and their docility being interesting. In Livonia holes are bored in old trees to receive swarms of bees, and with great success. December 1829, weighed 940 lbs. or A hog killed at Newmarket, in 117 stone, or 67 stone 4 lb. horseman's weight. Mr. Audubon describes the wonderful flocks of Pigeons which range over North America. He saw 163 in 21 minutes, all passing in one direction, at the rate of a mile per minute, and he estimated each flock as containing a billion of pigeons, and in this way, they were passing for three The liquor of the oyster contains innumerable embryos, with transpa-days. Vo: III. 4 A toad was found at Organ in France, in a well, which had been covered up for 150 years. It was torpid, but revived on being exposed. When bees leave a hive, all the individuals first reconnoitre the new situation in small parties. Reptiles become torpid when the temperature is below 40°. Snails, mollusca, and land testacea do the same. In hot and equal climates, as between the tropics, instances of hybernation are unknown. The sleep of winter and that of night are different in those animals which are torpid for months. The bat, the hedge-hog, the tawrie, the marmot, the hamster, the tortoise, the toad, snakes, mollusca, spiders, bees, flies, bears, badgers, &c. retire to their closed holes, and, in various legrees, undergo a temporary death for four, five, six, and seven months of the year. They usually roll themselves up, but bats suspend themselves in caves. Those who lay up provisions use them before they become torpid, and on reviving before they venture abroad. Their temperature lowers; their respiration is less frequent and at intervals, the circulation is reduced; they lose their feeling, the digestive organs are inactive, and they suffer loss of weight. The confined air in which they shut themselves, added to the cold, is a cause of their torpidity. Facts lead to the belief that some birds hyber nate. Two raindeer drag a sledge 50 or 60 miles a day. The traveller is tied im it, and poises it as necessary. Fallow deer fight in parties for their pasture, often for successive days. The males for the females till one is master. In mountain flocks of sheep, a ram or wedder takes the lead, and will kill a dog or resist a bull; and at times the whole draw up in battle array, and fight without retreat. One-eighth of the sheep in Great Britain perish every year of various diseases. There are supposed to be thirty millions. Herds of cattle, when attacked by a wolf, place the calves in the centre of a circle, and resist in form; or the bull advances and drives away the enemy. The horns of the Abyssinian ox are nearly four feet long, and seven inches diameter at their base. The Abyssinian buffalo is double the size of our oxen; and two draw as much as four horses there, in Egypt, and Persia. Childers ran four miles in 6 mi nutes, 48 seconds, or at the rate of 35 miles an hour, carrying 9 stone 2 lbs. A horse frequently sleeps while standing. Spanish asses are often 15 hands high. The mule is the produce of the male ass and mare, and the hinny of the she ass and horse. The mule is larger, more like the mare, and the hinny more like the she ass. Neither propagate with one another. The ursine seals live in communi ties, every male having ten or twelve females, protecting his own family, and preserving social intercourse, with great interest and sagacity. The dam of the northern foxes will follow those who kill her young for 60 or 70 miles, and howl round them by night and day, till she has in some way avenged herself. intermingle their breeds. Jackals The dog, the fox, wolf, and jackal hunt in packs with much noise, and hence drive prey into the haunts of lions, &c. Marmots make spacious and convenient habitations of several chambers, some of them several feet in diameter. The spines of the porcupine are from nine to fifteen inches, and perfect hard quills, which the animal can raise at pleasure, but not dart as pretended. They roam by night in quest of roots and vegetables, and are inoffensive, their spines protecting them from all attacks. The sloth crawls on its belly, and does not advance above 100 yards in a day. It is two days in climbing and descending a tree. The hippopotamus lives and walks in water for security, occasionally thrusting up its nostrils or head. In the night it feeds on sugar-canes, rice, maize, corn, &c. They weigh 2 tons; but are inoffensive unless | Hyena attacked, or in the pairing season. Fennec Dromedaries have been tried in Wolf the West Indies, but without success. The herds of lamas, and those of most animals, have sentinels to give warning of the approach of danger. Male deer only have horns, which, after their sixth year, they shed annually; they weigh from twenty to twenty-five pounds. The park deer are called fallow deer. The great red deer are less common. They have a leader, and, if necessary, fight in concert. The females expose themselves to save their young. Size of Mammalia. Ourang Outang Vampire Hedgehog The Shrew feet in Europe in Africa and 8 fec. in Pata Fox Jackal Great ant-eater 3 feet 10 inches 21 to 3 feet 1 to 2 feet 2 feet 15 to 18 inches 2 feet 3 to 4 feet 6 inches The armadillo and tail The elephant 8 inches 7 to 8 inches 6 inches 10 inches 24 feet 12 inches Spines 4 feet 4 feet 6 or 8 feet 5 feet 10 or 11 feet 8 to 10 feet high 6 feet 12 feet The tapir 6 or 7 feet high 4 to 5 feet 2 feet The hippopotamus 12 to 20 feet 6 or 7 feet 9 feet high to top of head 11-tail 2 feet 14 feet The stag 3 feet Roebuck 6 feet 34 feet 4 to 5 teet 3 feet 4 to 5 feet 15 or 16 feet high The pigmy antelope The maned seal 7 inches 10 inches 2 inch The common seal 3 feet 34 feet 10 inches 11 to 18 feet 6 to 9 feet 10 to 14 feet 4 to 6 feet 15 to 18 feet 20 to 28 feet 5 feet Mamiferous animals are divided into unguculated with nails, unguculated with hoofs, and nectopode or Web-footed. The first order is man, or homo-the first family of the second order is the simia or monkey tribe, in 9 genera, and many species. These live in colonies, and distinct species in the same forest without mutual annoyance, and in the same trees with parrots. They mimick man in every thing. The ourangoutang has no tail, and full grown, are 5 or 6 feet high. Their arms are long, and they use them as legs and hands. They carry clubs for offence, move in herds, and reside in huts made of leaves. Two or three which have been brought to Europe wer Mice are easily tamed and are very amusing, being fond of musick, and very clean, elegant, and harmless. They shun the odour of elder. docile, sensible, imitative, and very | sands, never turning aside, and deaffectionate. In Africa they perform stroying as they advance, but enmuch labour, and are very useful. camping at times, and acting with The pigmy without a tail is but 2 method. feet high, but very ingenious, active, and mischievous. The mona monkey is a great favourite in India, and they are fed and encouraged in some places. At Amanadab the Gentoos have three hospitals for them, and at Dherboy they are more numerous than men, and must be fed or do mischief. It is the magot or Barbary ape which is usually made to perform feats in Europe. The sphinx-baboon is 3 or 4 feet high. In Borneo they pillage houses, and move in large and very mischievous troops. The ursine baboon resides in the high lands, near the Cape of Good Hope, and is very mischievous, and often dangerous to single travellers, carrying clubs and throwing stones with great dexterity. The preacher monkey or Beelzebub, fills the woods with noise, travelling on the tops of the trees, and one haranguing the rest, displaying in every thing perfect sagacity. The lemur family in 5 genera, are like the monkey, except in the head, which more resembles the fox, and they are less imitative, though in trees as active as monkeys. Brown rats were unknown in England till 1730, but they now exceed native black rats in numbers. Their numbers drove the Dutch from the isle of France. They are often tamed and have been taught to play tricks. Guinea pigs or cavies are the most prolifick of animals, but very harmless and amusing, also very clean, feeding on herbs, parsley, &c. Hares are universal animals, but of various sizes, from 7 to 12 lbs. In the arctick circle they are white in winter. Their stratagems to escape danger are numerous and ingenious, but besides man, the enemy of every thing living; they are the prey of dogs, cats, weasles, eagles, &c. Rabbits do not burrow in hot clmates. They have sentinels to give who enter the holes last. The Tarwarning of danger, chiefly females, tarian hare is not larger than a rat, and lives in deep burrows. The great ant-eater catches ants by stretching out its tongue and lying still, and on the ants rising on he draws in his tongue. But it often breaks into the hills and penetrates them with his tongue till sa tisfied. They have been tamed. Bats have two pectoral teats and the thumb separated from the fingers.it They fly, but they have neither feathers nor beak, they are covered with hair and have teeth. They breed living young and suckle with teats. Their wings are the drapery of their bodies except when they stretch it to fly. They fly in the dark, and avoid objects not by seeing, but by some sense. The Hamster rat is of the largest species, very bold, fierce, and destructive. They construct very curious dwellings and are dormant in winter, but store up provisions. They are without fear and fight till overcome; and so numerous as to create scarcities of grain. The meadow mouse has similar habits, but it is timid, though destructive of corn crops. The Lemming varies in size from the rat to the mouse, and is celebrated for its numbers, and their straight line of emigration in tens of thou Mole-hills are curiously formed by an outer arch impervious to rain, and an internal platform with the pair and their young reside. drains, and covered ways on which They live on worms and roots, and bury themselves in any soil in a few minutes. in catching shell fish. The ichneu- to then. Leeches and earth-worms mon, in Egypt, performs the office are hermaphrodite, as well as snails of the European cat as a destroyer and slugs. of rats and reptiles, and devourer of The brain of fish is small and does eggs. It is like the cat, but legs not fill the skull. They have no shorter. The weasel has similar tympanum, and no external ear. propensities in northern climates. They have neither windpipe nor The ferret is the length of a cat with larynx, but breathe by gills. Their the habits of the weasel. The mar-nose is not connected with respiratin is an enemy of cats. The er- tion, and they have no urinary mine or stoat, and the sable are like bladder. weasels, but longer, and their skins fetch high prices. The pole-cat is larger than the male house cat, and very destructive to poultry, pigeons, rabbits, &c. The genus mephitus, has glands near the anus, which secrets a fetid acrid liquor which they squirt on their enemies with unerring destruction to clothes and skin, and so offensive as to be distinguished for a mile or two around. Animals which live on vegetables have no gall bladder. It is the same with the pigeon, parrot, and ostrich, and with mollusca. In some ruminantia the intestinal canal is 27 times the length of the animal, and in rodentia 15 times: in hogs 13 times: in the horse the colon is 24 feet, but in the dog only 6 or 8 inches. In the turtle the intestinal canal is 5 times the length of the body. The hoofs of animals are similar to the nails of man, and grow from the roots. Hair and feathers are analogous to the human hair. Horns of animals are similar, in general, to nails and hoofs; in cows, sheep, &c. they are formed of concentrick layers in fibres, like a collection of hairs agglutinated together. In deer they are bones attached, but in the giraffe part of the skull. The guinea pig has 10 teats, the rat 12, and the hare 10. In a laying hen, the ovary contains a great number of yellow round bodies, each in its own membrane or calyx, which when exuded is received into an extension of the membrane, forming a bunch, of which the outer are the largest. These are the yolks of future eggs, to be provided with whites and shells. The procreative powers of animals are so various that Linnæus had a design to extend his sexual system In the ovula of carp fish, called the roe, nearly 150000 germs of eggs have been counted, and in that of the sturgeon, weighing 160 pounds, nearly 1500000. The antennæ, or double, or quadruple horns of insects are so curiously shaped that 160 different forms have been noted. They are an organ of power and discrimination, like the arms of a man, or the trunk of an elephant, and have been supposed to be the residence of a peculiar or sixth sense. The bones of birds are hollow, and filled with air instead of marrow. Crustacea have teeth within the stomach. In serpents and fish both jaws are moveable. In animals that have no circulattubes running below the skin, called ing system, the air is respired by air trachem, as in insects and mollusca; or it passes through the integuments to every part of the body, as in worms and zoophytes. The lungs of birds are small, and of a flattened form, and much dispersed; but they respire through the bones and in cavities of the muscles. All hair is hollow and cylindrical. Young birds are covered with it, and feathers are a variety proceed from a bulbous root in the skin. "n the larva of insects there is an air tube on each side, with branches and several apertures. The neighing o. a horse is effected by a membrane which is attached to a cartilage, and runs along the margins of the glottis. The braying of an ass is produced by a similar membrane, and two large sacs which open into the larynx. It is the same with the mule. In apes, the bone connected is concave, and hence their noises. |