it belongs. Thus in the mineral world earths have a less perfect sensation than bitumen and sulphur ; these yield to metals; metals to vitriols; vitriols' to salts; salts to chrystallizations; and chrystallizations to what are called stones. The mineral is connected to the vegetable world by the amianthes and lytophites. Here a new species of sensation begins; a sensation partaking of the united qualities of mineral and vegetable; having the former in a much greater degree than the latter. Vegetable is more acute than mineral sensation; and, at the same time, more delicate. Its degrees and qualities aspire, in regular order, from the root to the moving plant. The polypus unites plants to insects; the tube-worm seems to connect insects with shells and reptiles; the sea-eel and the water-serpent connect reptiles with fishes; the flying-fish form the link between fishes and birds; bats and flying squirrels associate birds with quadrupeds; and the various gradations of monkeys and apes fill up the space between quadrupeds and men.

VIII.

It is curious, also, to observe the analogies of animals, in respect to their construction, capabilities, manners, and habits. Let us allude to a few of them. Wild horses live in communities, consisting of from ten to twenty, in the deserts of Western Tartary, and in the southern regions of Siberia. Each community is governed by a chief. The females bring forth one at a birth; which, if a male, is chased from the herd, when he

arrives at maturity; and wanders about till he has assembled a few mares, to establish an empire of his own. While feeding, or sleeping, the tribe place a sentinel, who is ever on the watch; and who, on all occasions for alarm, gives signals by neighing; on hearing which the whole party set off with a speed equal to that of the wind. Wild asses congregate in the same manner. Antelopes associate in bodies, frequently to the number of three thousand. The wild lamas of the Cordilleras herd, also, in large flocks; and appoint sentinels, who stand upon the summit of a precipice. In their habits they bear a great affinity with antelopes. The Arctic walrus sleeps with a herd, consisting of many hundreds, on the islands of ice along the coast of Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla; Hudson's Bay; the Gulph of St. Lawrence; and the Icy Sea. Ursine seals, too, are gregarious: each family consisting of from ten to fifty females, besides their young; commanded by the father, who exercises despotic authority.

...Violet crabs live in communities among the mountains of the Caribbee Islands; whence they emigrate, in immense bodies, every year, to the sea shore, in order to deposit their eggs. Green turtles, too, are gregarious. On shore they prefer the mangrove and the black-wood tree: but in the sea they feed upon weeds, as land animals do upon grass. When the sun shines, they are seen, many fathoms deep, feeding in flocks, like deer. Bees, wasps, and ants, congregate together in a manner still more wonderful.

In some animals we observe a propensity to hoard, for the satisfaction of the next day's appetite : in others for the entire winter's supply. This useful instinct is possessed by the beaver; the striped dormouse; the earless marmot; and the Alpine mole. Some birds have the same foresight; as the nuthatch and the tanager of the Mississippi: the former hoarding nuts, the latter maize. Some animals there are, which take pleasure in hoarding what can never be of use to them; as the raven, the jackdaw, the magpie, and the nut-cracker of Lorraine. Some quadrupeds assimilate in the custom of sleeping by day, and being active by night; such as the Egyptian jerboa; the wandering mouse; the hedge-hog; the six-banded armadillo; the great ant-eater; the tapir; the Brazilian porcupine; the flying squirrel of North and South America; and the hippopotamus of the Nile and the Niger. This curious propensity is observed, also, among some birds, insects, and fishes; as the owl; the finch of Hudson's Bay; the white throat; the goat-sucker; the eel; the turtle; and the moth. With these we may associate those flowers, which expand their blossoms during the evening and the night; as the Pomeridian pink; nocturnal catchfly; several species of moss; the nightshade of Peru; the nightingale flower of the Cape; the cereus grandiflorus; and the tree of melancholy, growing in the Moluccas: the numerous family of the confervæ ; charas; many kinds of ranunculi; and almost every species of aquatic plant. The Triste geranium, also,

(first brought into this country in 1632), has little or no scent in the middle of the day; but in the night it sheds an exquisite perfume.

Many beautiful flowers have no scent; many beautiful birds have no song; and many animals of symmetrical shapes are of no use to mankind. Some plants will exist for months without water; serpents are equally abstinent; and sloths will live forty days without any description of food. Analogies may be traced even in contrasts. Thus the most medicinal roots, the best gums, and the most odoriferous spices, are from countries producing the most destructive of animals as the condor, the dodo, the cassawary; alligators, crocodiles, and serpents; leopards, panthers, tigers, locusts, land-crabs, and rattlesnakes.

IX.

Few animals require habitations; they being sufficiently protected by their wool, hair, or scales. The soldier-crab, however, clothes himself in the discarded shell of a lobster. On the banks of the Congo, the African ants erect mushroom-like habitations, sometimes forming whole villages. Beavers shew more intellect, in respect to their securities, than any other animal : and not only build in a manner more consonant with reason, than the savage by whom they are pursued from one rivulet to another, but are more than equal to him in providing against the intensity of cold and the vicissitudes of want. The huts of New Caledonia were nothing more than sticks, set up closely together; on which were placed flags and

coarse grass. Their parallels may, occasionally, be seen in Gloucester and Monmouthshires; where wood is cut for charcoal. In the Manillas, trees budding, blossoming, and bearing fruit all the year, the inhabitants in past ages had only trees for their houses; and removed from one place to another, as they consumed the fruit.

Some insects form nests for their young; others have methods still more curious for their protection. The ichneumon fly deposits its eggs in the body of a caterpillar with the point of its sting. These become maggots, and feed upon the live body of the caterpillar, that matured them. The sphix genus of insects are less cruel: for they deposit their's only in spiders and caterpillars that are already dead. The oxfly lays its eggs in the skins of oxen: another species in the nostrils of sheep; and another upon the manes and hair of horses; which the horse, licking, takes into its stomach; where they become bots, and not unfrequently cause the horse's death. The chegoe of the West Indies lays its eggs even under the skin of men's legs; and unless the bag is removed, a mortification frequently ensues.

Animals of different genera resemble each other, not unfrequently, in the attitudes they respectively assume. The leech, when touched, rolls itself into a spherical form. The gally-worm, also, rolls itself up like a ball: so does the oniscus armadillo: and the domesticus dermestes, when alarmed in the least degree, draws its feet under its abdomen, and its head under its thorax, and seems to be dead.