What is the great object of this law of the Creator, that impels them to seek, in many cases, a mountain retreat, at a distance from the ocean, which forms the liquid atmosphere fitted to the great body of the Crustaceans, has not hitherto, for want of sufficient and accurate details of their history, been made fully obvious. When insects leave the waters to become denizens of the earth and air, the object appears evidently an increase of food, not only for terrestrial animals, whether moving on the one or in the other, but to multiply even that of the inhabitants of the waters. When the day-flies' burst in such myriads from the banks of rivers which they inhabited in their first state, the fishes are all in motion, and often jump from the water to catch the living flakes that are every moment descending. When in the water, or under it, these animals and the may-flies are defended, or concealed from the fishes, and therefore are not so easy to come at; but now is their harvest, and when they drop their eggs, they fall towards the stream, and it is deemed a shower of manna.

The same object brings the several kinds of land-crabs at stated times to sea, to deposite their eggs where their young may reach a certain maturity, if not undergo a metamorphosis; probably at this period there is an assemblage of aquatic devourers of Crustaceans, to share in the expected harvest. And during the route of the myriads that thus migrate to the sea, beasts and birds, and man himself, all partake of the feast thus provided for them.

If we give this subject of the migration of animals due consideration, and reflect what would be the consequence if no animals ever changed their quarters, we shall find abundant reason for thankfulness to the Almighty Father of the universe, for the care he has taken of his whole family, and of his creature man in particular, consulting not only his sustentation and the gratification of his palate by multiplying and varying his food, but also that of his other senses, by the beauty, motions, and music of the animals that are his summer or winter visiters: did the nightingale forsake our groves, the swallow our houses and gardens, the cod-fish, mackerel, salmon, and herring our seas, and all the other animals that occasionally visit us their several haunts, how vast would be the abstraction from the pleasure and comfort of our lives.

By means of these migrations, the profits and enjoyments. derivable from the animal creation are also more equally di 'vided, at one season visiting the south, and enlivening their

1 Ephemera.

winter, and at another adding to the vernal and summer delights of the inhabitant of the less genial regions of the north, and making up to him for the privations of winter. Had the Creator so willed, all these animals might have been organized so as not to require a warmer or a colder climate for the breeding or rearing of their young: but his will was, that some of his best gifts should thus oscillate, as it were, between two points, that the benefit they conferred might be more widely distributed, and not become the sole property of the inhabitants of one climate: thus the swallow gladdens the sight both of the Briton and the African; and the herring visits the coasts, and the salmon the rivers of every region of the globe. What can more strongly mark design, and the intention of an allpowerful, all-wise, and beneficent Being, than that such a variety of animals should be so organized and circumstanced as to be directed annually, by some pressing want, to seek distant climates, and, after a certain period, to return again to their former quarters; and that this instinct should be productive of so much good to mankind, and, at the same time, be necessary, under its present circumstances, for the preservation or propagation of the species of these several animals,

There is another view that may be taken of this subject, equally showing the attention of the Almighty Father to the wants of every description of his creatures. The migrating tribes of almost every kind are attended by numerous bands of predaceous animals, which, as well as man, partake in the general harvest; the bears, wolves, foxes, dogs, and, in tropical countries, other beasts of prey, hang on the flanks of the bands of emigrators, and capture and devour the stragglers. The vultures, and other carnivorous birds, follow and share in the spoil: and the emigrating fishes are attended by whole tribes of predaceous birds and fishes, which thin their numbers before they are taken by the nets of the fisherman.

I AM next to say something on the local distribution of animals. By their local distribution, I mean their station in any given country. Under this head they may be divided into terrestrial, amphibious, and aquatic.

The local distribution of lerrestrial animals is very diversified. Some inhabit the loftiest mountains, here the eagle builds its aërie, and the condor1 deposites its eggs on the bare rock; and

1 Sarcorhamphus Gryphus.

here the chamois 1 often laughs at the efforts of the hunter, astonishing him by the ease with which it scours over the rocks, or with which it ascends or descends the most inaccessible precipices.

Some animals, that in high latitudes are found in the plains, in a warmer atmosphere seek the mountains. Of this description is the beautiful Apollo butterfly, which, in Sweden is very common in the country and gardens about Upsal, while in France it is found only on mountains between three and four thousand feet above the level of the sea. I received very fine specimens collected by a friend in the Pyrenees. The common viper,3 also, which in northern Europe is found in the plains, in southern is found only on Alpine or Subalpine mountains.

It has been observed by an ingenious and learned writer, that the terrestrial globe seems to be formed of two immense mountains, set base to base at the equator, and that upon each of these hemispheres the vegetables and animals are generally placed in parallel zones, according to the degree of heat or cold. The exceptions to this rule, he farther observes, are easy to be appreciated, and confirm its truth, since the mountains, the various elevations and depressions of the country, which even under the same parallel modify the ordinary temperature, produce vegetables, and often animals, analogous to their several degrees of heat or cold. The lofty mountains in tropical countries, exhibit from their base to their snow-clad summits, the same gradation as these hemispheres present in going from the equator towards the poles.

The majority, however, of animals do not ascend such heights, but seek their subsistence in the plains, and less elevated regions; yet here a considerable difference obtains according to the nature of the soil and country. The vast sandy deserts of Africa and Asia, the Steppes of Tartary, the Llanos and Pampas of South America have their peculiar population; in the former the camel, and his master the Arab, whose great wealth he constitutes, are indigenous; in the latter the horse and the Tartar who rides and eats him; or the Hispano-American, and the herds of horses and oxen, returned to their wild and primitive type, who snares them with his lasso, and reduces them again to the yoke of man. Numerous also are the peculiar animal productions to which different soils afford subsistence. The sea-shore, sandy and barren wastes, woods and forests, arable lands, pasture, meadow and marsh, all are thus 2 Parnassius Apollo.

1 Antilope Rupicapra. 3 Coluber berus.

distinguished; every plant almost is inhabited by insects appropriated to it, every bird has its peculiar parasite or louse;1 and not only are the living animals so infested, but their carcasses are bequeathed to a numerous and varied army of dissecters, who soon reduce them to a naked skeleton; nay, their very excrements become the habitation of the grubs of sundry kinds of beetles and flies.

But not only is the surface of the earth and its vegetable clothing, thickly peopled with animals, but many, even quadrupeds and reptiles, as well as insects and worms, are subter. ranean, and seek for concealment in dens, caves and caverns, or make for themselves burrows and tortuous paths at various depths under the soil, or seek for safety and shelter, by lurking under stones or clods, and all the dark places of the earth.

6

To other animals, in order to pass gradually from such as are purely terrestrial, to those that are aquatic, Providence has given the privilege to frequent both the earth and the water; some of which may be regarded as belonging to the former, and frequenting the latter, as water fowl of various kinds, the amphibious rat, the architect beaver, many reptiles, and some insects; others again as belonging to the latter, and frequenting the former; for instance, the sea-otter, and the dif ferent kinds of seals and morse, the turtle,' the penguin." several insects, and the water-newts. 10 Other amphibious animals, if they may be so called, are aquatic at one period of their life, and terrestrial at another; this is particularly exemplified in some insects, thus the grubs of water-beetles,11 those of dragon-flies,1a may-flies,13 ephemeral-flies, 14 water moths, 15 gnats or mosquitos, 16 and several other two-winged flies, live in the water, while the perfect insect is either amphibious as the beetle, or terrestrial as the remainder.

But no part of this terraqueous globe is more fully peopled, and with a greater variety and diversity of beautiful, or strange, or monstrous forms, than the waters, from the infinite ocean to the most insignificant pool or puddle. Every part and portion of the supposed element of water; nay, almost every drop of that fluid teems with life. Thousands of aquatic species are

1 Nirmus.

3 Castor Fiber.

5 Phoca.

7 Chelonia Mydas.

9 Dyticus, Gyrinus, Ranatra, &c.

11 Dyticidæ, Hydrophilidæ, Gyrinidæ.

13 Trichoptera.

15 Hydro ampa.

2 Lemmus amphibius.

4 Enhydra marina.

6 Trichechus.

8 Aptenodytes.

10 Salamandra aquatica.
12 Libellulina.
14 Ephemeride.
16 Culex.

known, but myriads of myriads never have been seen and never will be seen by the eye of man.

Amongst those that inhabit fluids, none are more wonderful than those that are termed Infusories;1 because they are usu ally found in infusions of various substances, &c.: when dry, these animals lose all signs of life, but upon immersion, even after the lapse of years, they immediately awake from their torpor and begin to move briskly about. Even the air, according to Spallanzani, seems to contain the germs or eggs of these infinitesimals of creation, so that we swallow them when we breathe, as well as when we drink.

With respect to animals more entirely aquatic, some inhabit, as the majority of sea-fishes and animals, salt waters only, some salt at one time and fresh at another, as the species of the salmon genus, the sturgeon, &c.; and some frequent brackish water, as some flat-fish, and shell-fish.

The bed of the mighty ocean is not only planted with a variety of herbs, which afford pasture to many of its animal inhabitants, but it has other productions which represent a forest of trees and shrubs, and are, strictly speaking, the first members of the zoological world, connecting it with the vegetable; these are denominated Zoophytes or animal plants, and Polypes (Polypus.) This last name has been adopted from Aristotle; with him however and the ancients, it is evidently used to designate the Argonaut2 and Nautilus of the moderns, and also to include some terrestrial shells. The Zoophytes however are not confined to the ocean, every rivulet, and stagnant ditch or pool affords to some kinds, more commonly denomi nated Polypes, and also to some sponges, their destined habitation. An infinite army of shell fish, whether multivalve, bivalve, or univalve, also cover the bed of the ocean, or move in its waters, and some dance gaily on its surface with expanded sails, or dashing oars when tempted by fair weather.

From this brief view of the local distribution of animals and their various haunts, we see the care of Divine Providence, that no place, however, at first sight, apparently unfit, might be without its animal as well as vegetable population: if the hard rock is clothed with a lichen, the lichen has its inhabitant: and that inhabitant, besides affording an appropriate food to the bird that alights upon the rock, or some parasite that has been hatched in or upon its own body, assists in forming a soil upon it. There is no place so horrible and fetid

1 Infusoria, Acrita, Agastria, Amorpha, Microscopica. 2 Argonauta.