things that are made,1 and that spiritual truths are reflected as by a mirror, and shown, as it were, enigmatically, we shall be convinced that, in this view, the study of nature, if properly conducted, may be made of the first importance. In this enumeration and history of the principal tribes of the Animal Kingdom, we have traced in every page the footsteps of infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness. In our ascent from the most minute and least animated parts of that Kingdom to man himself, we have seen in every department that nothing was left to chance, or the rule of circumstances, but every thing was adapted by its structure and organization for the situation in which it was to be placed, and the functions it was to discharge; that though every being, or group of beings, had separate interests, and wants, all were made to subserve to a common purpose, and to promote a common object, and that though there was a general and unceasing conflict between the members of this sphere of beings, introducing apparently death and destruction into every part of it, yet that by this great mass of seeming evil pervading the whole circuit of the animal creation, the renewed health and vigour of the entire system was maintained. A part suffers for the benefit and salvation of the whole; so that the doctrine of the suffering of one creature, by the will of God, being necessary to promote the welfare of another, is irrefragably established by every thing we see in nature: and further, that there is an unseen hand directing all to accomplish this great object, and taking care that the destruction shall in no case exceed the necessity. Well, then, may all finally exclaim, in the words of the Divine Psalmist : O Lord, how manifold are thy works, in WISDOM hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches. So is the great and wide sea also, wherein are things creeping innumerable both small and great beasts. These wait all upon thee: that thou mayest give them meat in due season. When thou givest them they gather it; and when thou openest thy hand they are filled with good. When thou hidest thy face they are troubled; when thou takest away their breath they die, and are turned again to their dust. When thou lettest thy breath go forth they shall be made: and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. 1 Rom. i. 20. 2 1 Cor. xiii. 12. APPENDIX. SINCE the preceding part of this treatise had mostly passed through the press, I have had an opportunity of consulting some recently published works, which contain accounts, illustrated by figures, of many very interesting animals belonging to several of the Classes of which I have there treated; and all of which more or less demonstrate a presiding Intelligence immediately connected with the globe that we inhabit, and who, viewed under every aspect, evidently careth for us, and all the creatures he has made. I shall select a few of these for the consideration of the reader. I formerly observed' that types representing some of the higher forms of the animal kingdom were often to be detected amongst those belonging to its lowest grade: a remarkable instance of this may be seen in one of Ehrenberg's late works, in which is described and figured a singular Polygastric Infusory, which seems to exhibit the first outline of an Arachnidan3 form; it has eight locomotive organs or bristles, representing the eight legs of those animals. By means of these organs, this animal, which was found by Dr. Ehrenberg in the Red Sea, performs a double rotatory movement, one by the rotation of the anterior pair, and the other by the three posterior pairs. The motion. of these filamentous legs is so rapid that they appear as if, instead of eight, a hundred were revolving, and so form a kind of natural Phantasmascope. Another infusory genus, Bacillaria, seems, to prefigure the Salpes, the species at first being concatenated in chains, or ribands, and afterwards separating." The animalcules forming this genus have sometimes been mistaken for plants, and the quadrangular form of the associated individuals gives them the appearance of the jointed stem of a plant, rather than of an animal chain. On a former occasion, I alluded to other imitations of the vegetable world 1 See above, p. 358 2 Symbole Physica. exhibited by the polypes, particularly to some of them producing seeming blossoms, consisting, as it were, of many petals. I shall now notice some that represent monopetalous flowers. A genus long known to naturalists, which seems intermediate between the Infusories and the Polypes, named originally by Linné Vorticella, exactly simulates a bell flower with a spiral footstalk. They are often found in fresh water, and present no unapt representation of a bunch of the flowers of the Lily of the valley, whence one species has been named Vorticella Convallaria. Some of these have branching, and others simple stems, but they are all spiral and capable of being lengthened or shortened at the will of the animal, which is thus enabled to elevate or depress its little blossoms, the mouths of which are furnished with a double circlet of filamentary tentacles, by the rotation of which, like the rest of its tribe, it can produce a food-conveying current to its mouth. Still nearer to the Polypes, with which indeed it is arranged, is another genus representing monopetalous flowers named by Ehrenberg, who found it in the Red sea, Zoobotryon, or Animal-grape. This singular animal production will scarcely arrange under any of the Orders mentioned on a former occasion, but it may be regarded as intermediate between the Rotatories and the Polypes. Like the latter it is a compound animal, consisting of a naked branching stem; its lower extremity, as may be seen in the figure, appears as if sending forth numerous little radicles, and the branches terminate in ovate germs, from which issue a multitude of animalcules resembling monopetalous bell-shaped flowers, with the mouth surrounded by a filamentous coronet, each sitting upon a spiral elastic footstalk, by means of which the animalcule can either draw itself close to the stem, or, shooting out, on either side after its prey. When the mouth of every individual is open, each germ looks like what botanists call a raceme of bell-shaped flowers; and, when they are closed, they resemble a bunch of grapes.* To the class of Worms, especially those that have been denominated Entozoa, or internal worms, I have a few interesting additions to make, taken from a work of Dr. Nordmann's, some of which are so extraordinary and wonderful, both as to their functions and structure, that the great object of the present 1 See above, p. 279. 3 PLATE I. B. FIG. 2. a. 5 Micrographische Beiträge, &c. 2 Ibid. 277. 4 Ibid. b. treatise, Gloria Deiex opere nature, will receive considerable illustration from some account of them. Dr. Nordmann's first treatise is upon a tribe of these creatures that are interesting from their very singular situation, in the Eyes, namely, of the higher animals. Amongst the personal pests of our own species, enumerated in the chapter above alluded to, I mentioned none that attacked the organs just named; but this learned investigator of parasitic worms has noticed two which have been detected in them; one related to the Guinea-worm, which was extracted from the eye of a person affected by a cataract; and another, a Hydatid, from the eye of a young woman. 2 Besides those that infest our own visual organs, quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes, have each their eye-worms. Amongst those to which the will of Providence has assigned their station in the eyes of the latter class of animals, is a remarkable one," which Dr. Nordmann discovered in those of several different species of perch, sometimes, in such numbers, as must have interfered with that distinct sight of passing objects, which appears necessary to enable predaceous animals to discover their prey in time to dart upon it and secure it; in a single eye the Doctor detected, in different parts, 360! of these animalcules: when much increased they often produce cataracts in the eye of the fishes they infest. This little animal appears something related to the Planaria, or pseudo-lecch, and, to judge from Dr. Nordmann's figures, seems able, like it, to change its form.7 Underneath the body, at the anterior extremity, is the mouth; and in the middle are what he denominates two sucking-cups;" these are prominent, and viewed laterally form a truncated cone; the anterior one is the smallest and least prominent, and more properly a sucker; the other probably has other functions, since he could never ascertain that it was used for prehension. A kind of metamorphosis seems to take place in these animals, for our author observed that they appeared under three different forms. These little pests, small as they are, have a parasite of their own to avenge the cause of the perch, for Dr. Nordmann observed some very minute brown dots or capsules attached to the intestinal canal, which when extracted, by means of a scalpel formed of the thorns of the creeping cereus,1 and laid upon a piece of talc, the membrane that inclosed them burst, and forth issued living animalcules, belonging to the genus Monas, and smaller than M. Atomus, which immediately turned round upon their own axis with great velocity, and then jumped a certain distance in a straight line, when they again revolved, and again took a second leap. Looking over our author's list of eye-worms that infest fishes, we find that five out of seven are attached to different species of perch, and one cannot help feeling some commiseration for these poor animals; but when we recollect that they form the most numerous body of predaceous fishes in our rivers, we may conjecture that thus their organs of vision are rendered less acute, and that thus thousands of roach, dace, carp, and tench may escape destruction. The ever watchful eye of a Father Providence is over all his works, and he has provided means, in every department of the animal kingdom, so to limit the inroads of the predaceous species, that a due proportion and hormonious mixture may every where be maintained, and that with respect to every individual species. The means are various, but the end is one; and the partial evil terminates in the general good and welfare of the whole. Next to the eyes, the gills of fishes are subject to annoyance from internal worms; and amongst these there is none more remarkable or wonderful than one first discovered by Dr. Nordmann, upon those of the bream, and to which, on account of its remarkable structure and conformation, he has given the name af Diplozoon, or Double animal. In the Classes of Polypes and Tunicaries we have been introduced to many animals that appear to be compound; which, from a common stem or body send forth numerous oscula or mouths, in this emulating the members of the vegetable kingdom; but amongst all these plant-animals, there is none can compete with this of Dr. Nordmann, which, like the Siamese youths, appears to be formed of two distinct bodies, united in the middle so as to present the appearance of a St. Andrews cross, each half of the animal containing precisely the same organs; namely, an alimentary canal, a system for circulation and generation, and also a nervous system. Müller calls the innumerable and varying cohorts of the animal creation preachers of the infinite wisdom and power of the Sovereign of the world; and this is 1 Cactus flagelliformis. 3 Phytozoa 2 Cyprinus Brama. |