Part 12 (1/2)

Some amphibious animals also bring forth their young alive, as the viper, &c. But such species as lay eggs, deposit them in places where the heat of the sun supplies the want of warmth in the parent. Thus the frog, and the lizard, drop their's in shallow waters, which soon receive a genial heat by the rays of the sun; the common snake, in dunghills, or other warm places. The crocodile and sea-tortoise go ash.o.r.e to lay their eggs in the sand; in these cases, Nature, as a provident nurse, takes care of all.

The multiplication of animals is not restrained to the same rule in all; for some have a remarkable power of increase, while others are, in this respect, confined within very narrow limits. Yet, in general, we find, that nature observes this order, that the least animals, and those which are most useful for food to others, usually increase with the greatest rapidity. The mite, and many other insects, will multiply to a thousand within the compa.s.s of a few days; while the elephant hardly produces a young one in two years.

Birds of the hawk-kind seldom lay more than two eggs; while poultry will produce from fifteen to thirty. The diver, or loon, which is eaten by few animals, lays also only two eggs; but the duck-kind, moor game, partridges, &c. and small birds in general, lay a great many. Most of the insect tribes neither bear young nor hatch eggs; yet they are the most numerous of all living creatures; and were their bulk proportionable to their numbers, there would not be room on the earth for any other animals.

The Creator has wisely ordained the preservation of these minute creatures. The females lay not their eggs indiscriminately, but are endued with instinct to choose such places as may supply their infant offspring with proper nourishment: in their case, this is absolutely necessary, for the mother dies as soon as she has deposited her eggs, the male parent having died before this event takes place; so that no parental care ever falls to the lot of this orphan race. And indeed, were the parents to live, it does not appear that they would possess any power to a.s.sist their young. b.u.t.terflies, weevils, tree-bugs, gall-insects, and many others, lay their eggs on the leaves of plants; and every different tribe chooses its own species of plants. Nay, there is scarce any plant which does not afford nourishment to some insect; and still more, there is hardly any part of a plant which is not preferred by some of them. Thus one feeds upon the flower; another upon the leaves; another upon the trunk; and still another upon the root. But it is particularly curious to observe how the leaves of some trees of plants are formed into dwellings for the convenience of these creatures. Thus the gall-insect, fixes her eggs in the leaves of an oak; the wounded leaf swells, and a k.n.o.b arises like an apple, which includes, protects, and nourishes the embryo. In the same manner are the galls produced, which are brought from Asiatic Turkey, and which are used both as a medicine, and as a dye in several of our manufactories.

When the tree-bug has deposited its eggs in the boughs of the fir-tree, excrescences arise, shaped like pearls. When another insect of the same species has deposited its eggs in the mouse-ear, chick-weed, or speedwell plants, the leaves contract in a wonderful manner into the shape of a head. The water spider excludes eggs either on the extremities of juniper, which from thence forms a lodging that resembles the arrow-headed gra.s.s; or on the leaves of the poplar, from whence a red globe is produced. The tree-louse lays its eggs on the leaves of the black poplar, which turn into a kind of inflated bag; and so in many other instances.

Nor is it only upon plants that insects live and lay their eggs. The gnat commits her's to stagnant waters; the flesh-fly, in putrified flesh; another kind of insect deposits her's in the cracks of cheese.

Some insects exclude their eggs on certain animals; the mill-beetle, between the scales of fishes; a species of the gadfly, on the back of bullocks; another of the same species, on the back of the rein-deer; another, in the noses of sheep; another still, in the intestinal tube, or the throat of horses. Nay, even insects themselves are generally surrounded with the eggs of other insects; so that there is, perhaps, no animal to be found, but what affords both lodging, and nourishment, and food, to other animals: even man himself, the haughty lord of this lower world, is not exempt from this general law.

We shall next call the reader's attention to some particulars respecting the FORMATION OF ANIMALS.

Whatever matter may be in itself as to its essence, it is certain that it appears to our senses as various and heterogeneous: however, the modus of the formation of animals is still unknown. The inspired writers express themselves here, at least, according to the capacity of the learned, as well as the vulgar, when they acknowledge the ignorance of mankind,--how the bones do at first grow in their embryo state,--and that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, when we are fas.h.i.+oned secretly in the lower parts of the earth. However, it seems not probable, that one part of matter acting upon another, should produce animal existence, though we grant it may have a strange and unaccountable power in the alteration of matter purely insensible or inanimate. Fermentation may dilate, and extremely alter the parts of animated matter, when they are delineated and marked out by the finger of the Almighty; but still, matter being a principle purely pa.s.sive and irrational, we cannot conceive how it should become an animal, any more than a world, it being much more easy for stones to leap out of a quarry, and make an Escurial, without asking the architect's leave, or calling for the mason, with his mortar and trowel, to a.s.sist them.

Nor seems it necessary, or rational, that the first seed of every creature should formally include all those seeds that should be afterwards produced from it; since it is, we think, sufficient that it should potentially include them, just as Abraham did Levi; or as one kernel does all those indeterminate kernels that may be thence afterwards raised; the first seeds being doubtless of the same nature with those that now exist, after so many thousand years, the order of time making only an accidental difference; which if we do not grant, we must run into this absurdity, that every thing does not produce its like,--a bird a bird, or a horse a horse,--which would be to fill all the world with monsters, which nature does so much abhor.

But every vegetable seed, or kernel, for example, does now actually and formally contain all the seeds or kernels which may be at any time afterwards produced from them. A kernel has indeed, as we have found by microscopes, a pretty fair and distinct delineation of the tree and branches into which it may be afterwards formed by the fermentation of its parts, and addition of suitable matter; as in the tree are potentially contained all the thousands and millions of kernels, and so of trees, that shall or may be thence raised afterwards: and some are apt to believe it must be similar in the first animals; whereas the finest gla.s.ses, which are brought to an almost incredible perfection, cannot discover actual seeds in seeds, or kernels in kernels; though, if there were any such thing as an actual least atom, they might, one would think, be discovered by them, since they have shewn us not only seeds, but even new animals, in many parts of matter where we never suspected them, and even in some of the smallest animals themselves, whereof our naked sight can take no cognizance. As for the parts of matter, be they how they will, finite or infinite, it makes no great alteration; for, if these parts are not all seminal, we are no nearer. Nay, at best, an absurdity seems to be the consequence of this hypothesis; because, if those parts are infinite, and include all successive generations of animals, it would follow that the number of animals too should be infinite; and, instead of one, we should have a thousand infinites; and it would be strange too if they should not, some of them, be greater or less than one another.

For that pleasant fancy, that all the seeds of animals were distinctly created at the beginning of time and things, that they are mingled with all the elements, that we take them in with our food, and the _he_ and _she_ atoms either fly off or stay, as they like their lodgings; we hope there is no need of being serious to confute it. And we may ask of this, as well as the former hypothesis,--what need of them, when the work may be done without them? The kernel, as before, contains the tree, the tree a thousand other fruits, and ten thousand kernels; the first animal several others; and as many of them as Nature can dispose of, and provide fit nourishment for, are produced into what we may call actual being, in comparison to what they before enjoyed. If it be asked, whether these imperfect creatures have all distinct souls while lurking yet in their parent? we answer, that there is no need of it; they are not yet so much as well-defined bodies, but rather parts of the parent: there is required yet a great deal more of the chemistry and mechanism of nature, and that in both s.e.xes, to make one or more of these embryo beings, the offspring of man, capable of receiving a rational soul; but when that capacity comes, and wherein it consists, perhaps he only knows, who is the Father of spirits, as well as the former of the universe.

ON THE PRESERVATION OF ANIMALS.--With respect to the preservation of animals, it maybe observed, that in tender age, while the young are unable to provide for themselves, the parent possesses the most anxious care for them. The lioness, the tigress, and every other savage of the wilderness, are gentle and tender towards their offspring; they spare no pains, no labour, for their helpless progeny; they scour the forest with indescribable rage; destruction marks their path; they bear their victim to the covert, and teach their whelps to quaff the blood of the slain.

There is one great law, which the all-wise Creator has implanted in animals towards their offspring, which is, that, according to their nature, they should provide for their nourishment, defence, and comfort.

All quadrupeds give suck to their young, and support them by a liquor of a most delicate taste, and perfectly easy of digestion, till they are capable of receiving nourishment from more solid food.

Birds build their nests in the most artificial manner, and line them as soft as possible, that the eggs or young may not be injured. Nor do they build promiscuously, but chuse such places as are most concealed, and likely to be free from the attacks of their enemies: thus the hanging-bird of the tropical countries, makes its nest of the fibres of withered plants lined with down, and fixes it at the extremity of some bough hanging over the water, that it may be out of reach; and the diver places its swimming nest upon the water itself, among the rushes.

The male rooks and crows, during the time of incubation, bring food to the females. Pigeons, and most of the small birds which pair, sit by turns; but where polygamy prevails, the males scarcely take any care of the young.

Birds of the duck kind pluck the feathers off their breast, and cover their eggs with them, lest they should be injured by cold when they quit their nest for food; and when the young are hatched, they shew the utmost solicitude in providing for them, till they are able to fly, and s.h.i.+ft for themselves.

Young pigeons are fed with hard seeds, which the parents first have prepared in their own crops, that so the infant bird may digest them easily. And the eagle makes its nest on the highest precipices of mountains, and in the warmest spot, facing the sun; here the prey which it brings is corrupted by the heat, and made digestible to the young.

There is, indeed, an exception to this fostering care of animals in the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in the nest of some small bird, generally the wagtail, yellow-hammer, or white-throat, and leaves both the incubation and preservation of the young to them. But naturalists inform us that this apparent want of instinct in the cuckoo proceeds from the structure and situation of its stomach, which disqualifies it for incubation; still its care is conspicuous in providing a proper, though a foreign situation, for its eggs.

Amphibious animals, fishes, and insects, which cannot come under the care of their parents, yet owe this to them, that they are deposited in places where they easily find proper nourishment.

When animals come to that maturity as no longer to want parental care, they exercise the utmost labour and industry for the preservation of their own lives. But the different species are many, and the individuals of each species are very numerous. In order, therefore, that all may be supported, the Creator has a.s.signed to each cla.s.s its proper food, and set bounds and limits to their appet.i.tes. Some live on particular species of plants, which are produced only in particular animalcula; others on carcases, and some even on mud and dung. For this reason, Providence has ordained that some should swim in certain regions of the watery element; that others should fly; and that some should inhabit the torrid, the frigid, or the temperate zones. Different animals also are confined to certain spots in the same zone: some frequent the deserts, others the meadows, or the cultivated grounds; thus the mountains, the woods, the pools, the gardens, have their proper inhabitants. By this means there is no terrestrial tract, no sea, no river, no country, but what teems with life. Hence one species of animals does not injuriously invade the aliment of another; and hence the world at all times affords support to so many, and such various inhabitants, and nothing which it produces is in vain.

We ought to remark, also, the wisdom and goodness of Providence in forming the structure of the bodies of animals for their peculiar manner of life, and in giving them clothing which is suitable both to the country and element in which they live.

Thus the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the various kinds of monkeys, are destined to live in the torrid regions, where the sun darts its fiercest rays; their skins are therefore naked, for were they covered with hair, they would perish with heat. They are also of such conformation of body as to suit their different manner of life. The rein-deer has his habitation in the coldest parts of Lapland; his food is the liverwort, which grows nowhere else so abundantly; and as the cold is in that country intense, this useful animal is covered with hair of the densest kind; by this means he easily defies the keenness of the arctic regions. The rough-legged partridge pa.s.ses its life in the Lapland Alps, where it feeds on the seeds of the dwarf birch: while, to withstand the cold, and to enable it to run freely among the snow, even its feet are thickly beset with feathers.

The camel is a native of the arid sandy deserts, which, with their dreadful sterility, are yet capable of yielding him support. How wisely has the Creator formed him! his foot is made to traverse the burning sands; and as the place of his habitation affords but little water, he is made capable of enduring long journeys, and going many days without quenching his thirst; for he is furnished with a natural reservoir, in which, when he drinks, he stores up a quant.i.ty of water, and has the power of using it in a frugal and sparing manner, when, for his food, he crops the dry thistle of the desert. The bullock delights in low rich grounds, because there he finds the food which is most palatable to him. The wild horse chiefly resorts to woods, and feeds upon leafy plants. Sheep prefer hills of moderate elevation, where they find a short sweet gra.s.s, of which they are very fond. Goats climb up the precipices of mountains, that they may brouse on the tender shrubs; and, in order to fit them for their situation, their feet are made for jumping.

Swine chiefly get provision by turning up the earth; for which purpose their snouts are peculiarly formed. In this employment they find succulent roots, insects, and reptiles.