viscera. The animals, stupified by these repeated shocks, fall into a profound lethargy, and, deprived of all sense, sink under the water, when the other horses and mules passing over their bodies, they are soon drowned. The Gymnoti having thus discharged their accumulation of the electric fluid, now become harmless, and are no longer dreaded: swimming half out of the water, they flee from the horses instead of attacking them; and if they enter it the day after the battle, they are not molested, for these fishes require repose and plenty of food to enable them to accumulate a sufficient supply of their galvanic electricity. It is probable that they can act at a distance, and that their electric shock can be communicated through a thick mass of water. Mr. Williams, at Philadelphia, and Mr. Fahlberg, at Stockholm, have both seen them kill from far living fishes which they wished to devour: Lacepede says they can do this at the distance of sixteen feet. They are said also to emit sparks.

Of all the Gymnoti the electric is the only species in which the natatory vesicle extends from the head to the tail; it is in that species of the extraordinary length of two feet five inches, and one inch and two lines wide, but the diameter diminishes greatly towards the tail: it reposes upon the electric organs. It has been asserted that this fish is attracted by the loadstone, and that by contact with it it is deprived of its torporific powers.1 It is singular that in the three principal animals which Providence has signalized by this wonderful property, the organs of it should differ so much, both in their number, situation, and other circumstances; but as there appears to be little other connection between them, it was doubtless to accommodate them to the mode of life and general organization of the fishes so privileged.

There is another little fish, of a very different tribe, which emulates the electric ones, in bringing its prey within its reach, by discharging a grosser element at them. It belongs to a genus, the species of which are remarkable for the singularity of their forms, the brilliancy of their colours, and the vivacity of their movements. The species I allude to3 may be called the fly-shooter, from its food being principally flies, and other insects, especially those that frequent aquatic plants and places.

1 The author from whom my information on the electric fishes is chiefly derived are, Rudolphi, Anatomische, Bemerkungen. &c. 1826; Geoffroy, Ann. du Mas. i.; Lacepede, Hist. des Poissons; Humboldt, Observations de Zoologie et d'Anatomie comparée; and Bosc, in N. D. D'Hist. Nat. xii. xiv. xxxiv. 2 Chatodon. 3 C. rostratus.

These, as Sir C. Bell relates,1 it, as it were, shoots with a drop of water.

In a former part of this treatise I have given an account of those American fishes, which, when the water fails them in the streams they inhabit, by means of a moveable organ, representing the first ray of their pectoral fin, are enabled to travel over land in search of one whose waters are not evaporated. An analogous fact has been observed in China, by a friend and connexion of mine, who paid particular attention to every branch of zoology when in the East. At Canton he informed me there is a fish that crosses the paddy fields from one creek to another, often a quarter of a mile asunder. The Chinese told him that this was done by means of a kind of leg.

I shall close this history of Fishes with some account of the tribe to which the fishing-frog belongs. I have before alluded to their connection with the Reptiles: in some points also they look to the rays and the sharks. The attenuated tail of all, and the enormous swallow of others, give them this resemblance, especially to the first, so that the French call them fishing-rays. The best known of them is that called, by way of eminence, the fishing-frog. This is a large fish, sometimes seven feet long; it is found in all the European seas, and is often called the sea-devil. "This fish," says Lacepede, "having neither defensive arms in its integuments, nor force in its limbs, nor celerity in swimming, is, in spite of its bulk, constrained to have recourse to stratagem to procure its subsistence, and to confine its chase to ambuscades, for which its conformation in other respects adapts it. It plunges itself in the mud, covers itself with sea-weed, conceals itself amongst the stones, and lets no part of it be perceived but the extremity of the filaments that fringe its body, which it agitates in different directions, so as to make them appear like worms or other baits. The fishes, attracted by this apparent prey, approach, and are absorbed by a single movement of the fishingfrog, and swallowed by his enormous throat, where they are retained by the innumerable teeth with which it is armed. Another animal of this tribe is furnished only with a single bait, just above the mouth."

We see by this singular contrivance that fertility of expedi

ent by which the Beneficence, and Wisdom, and Power of the Creator have remedied the seeming defects which appear incident to almost every animal form. If it cannot pursue and overtake and seize its prey, it is enabled, as in the case of the electric fishes, the fly-shooter, and the fishing-frogs, in a way we should not expect, to ensure its subsistence; and, while it is doing this, discharging, if I may so speak, its official duty, and acting that part, on its own theatre, by which it best contributes to the general welfare.

Doubtless the infinite forms of the Class we are considering, that inhabit the, so called, element of water, and of which probably we may still be unacquainted with a very large proportion, all bear the same relation to each other, and are organized with a view to a similar action upon each other, that we see takes place upon the earth. There are predaceous fishes. to keep the aquatic population of every description within due limits; there are others whose office it is to remove nuisances arising from putrescent substances, whether animal or vegetable; and lastly, there are others which, like our herds and flocks, are peaceful and gregarious, and graze the herbage of sea-weeds that cover the ocean's bed. All these, in their several stations, and by their several operations, glorify their Almighty Author by fulfilling his will.

CHAPTER XXII.

Functions and Instincts. Reptiles.

IN the whole sphere of animals, there are none, that, from the earliest ages have been more abhorred and abominated, and more repudiated as unclean and hateful creatures, than the majority of the class we are next to enter upon,—that of Reptiles. One Order1 of them, indeed, consisting of the turtles and tortoises, and some individuals belonging to another, are exempted from this sentence, and are regarded with more favourable eyes; but the rest either disgusts us by their aspect, or terrify us by their supposed or real powers of injury.

In Scripture, the serpent; the larger Saurians, under the names of the dragon and leviathan; and frogs are employed as symbols of the evil spirit, of tyrants and persecutors, and of the false prophets that incite them.3

Yet these animals exhibit several extraordinary characters and qualities. They are endued with a degree of vivaciousness that no others possess, they can endure dismemberments and privations which would expel the vital principal from any creature in existence except themselves. Their life is not so eoncentrated in the brain, which with them is extremely minute but seems more expanded over the whole of their nervous system: take out their brain or their heart, and cut of their head, yet they can still move, and the heart will even beat many hours after extraction; it is also stated that they can live without food for months, and even years.*

But though gifted by their Creator with such a tenacity of life, yet is that life often raised a very few degrees above death. Many of them select for their retreats damp and gloomy cav erns and vaults, shut out from the access of the light and air. In allusion to this circumstance, Babylon, the imperial city, she, who in ancient times subjected the eastern world to her

1 The Chelonians.

2 The Gecko, Monitor, Chamæleon, &c. amongst the Saurians. 3 Job, xli. 34; P8l. xxvii. 1 ; Ezek. xxv. 3; Rev. xx. 2, xvi. 13. 4 Cuv. Règn. An. ii. 1. 8. Lacep. Quad. Ovipar. i. 20.

domination, was forewarned that she should become heaps, and a dwelling-place for dragons.1

Whether the many instances that have been recorded in different countries, of toads found incarcerated alive in blocks of stone or marble, or in trunks of trees, are all to be accounted for by supposing a want of accurate observation of the concomitant circumstances in those that witnessed their discovery, I will not take upon me to say; but they are so numerous, as to leave some doubt upon the mind whether some of these creatures may not have been accidentally interred alive, as it were, when in a torpid state, and continued so, till, their grave being opened, and the air admitted to their lungs again, their vital functions have been resumed, to the astonishment of those who witnessed the seeming miracle. Though so given to withdraw themselves into dark and dismal retreats, yet many of them are fond also of basking in the sun-beam, particularly the serpents and the lizards.

Zoologists seem not even yet fully to have made up their minds with regard to the classification of Reptiles. Linné placed them in the same Class with the Cartilaginous Fishes, of which they form his first and second Orders; but subsequent zoologists, with great propriety, have generally considered them as forming a Class by themselves, under their primeval name of Reptiles. This Class M. Brongniart divided into four Orders, viz. Chelonians, Saurians, Ophidians and Batrachians: and Baron Cuvier has followed this arrangement in his Règne Animal. Latreille, adopting the Group, has divided it into two Classes, Reptiles and Amphibians. The Reptiles he considers as forming two Sub-classes, viz. Cataphracta, containing the Chelonians, and Crocodiles, and Squamosa, containing the remaining Saurians and the Ophidians. His second Class, the Amphibians, consisting of the Batrachians of Brongniart, with the addition of the Proteus, Siren, &c. he divides into two Tribes, viz. Caducibranchia, or the proper Batrachians, and Perennibranchia, or the Proteus, Siren, Axolot, &c. This classification is adopted by Dr. Grant, except that he does not subdivide the Reptiles into two Sub-classes; and Latreille's two Tribes of Amphibians he properly denominates Orders.

That Reptiles, in the larger sense of the term, form a natural Group, will be generally admitted, when it is considered that the salamanders, or naked efts, evidently connect the Batrachians with the Saurians, and were formerly considered as

1 Jerem. li. 37.

3. Outlines of a Course of Lectures, &c. 14—16.

2 Amphibia.