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THE ROMANCE

OF

NATURAL HISTORY.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL'S WORK.

THE ROMANCE

OF

NATURAL HISTORY.

by Philip Henry Gosse, F.R.S.

Second Series.

LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.

M.DCCC.LXI.

CONTENTS.

I. THE EXTINCT.

PAGE

Death of Species -- Some Died in Early Historic Ages -- Some Dying Now -- Changes of Land and Water -- Tertiary State of Europe -- Dinothere of Germany -- Sivathere of India -- Gigantic Tortoise -- Pachyderms of Siberia -- Rhinoceros -- Mammoth -- Mastodon of America -- Great Quadrupeds of South America -- Sloths -- Habits of Mylodon -- Macrauchen -- Toxodon -- Ancient Australia and its Colossal Birds -- Ancient Britain -- Its Flora and Fauna -- Irish Elk -- Carnivores -- Chronology of the Tertiary Era -- Contemporaneous Existence of Man with the Fossil Fauna -- Gigantic Tortoise -- Condition of Siberian Pachyderms -- Discovery of the Remains -- Contemporary Fauna of Britain -- Chinese and Siberian Traditions -- Indian Traditions of the Mastodon -- State of its Remains -- Its Food -- Comparative Lateness of Geologic Processes in America -- Possibility that the Mastodon was a Beast of Burden -- Darwin on the South American Sloths -- Freshness of their Remains -- Synchronism with Existing Creatures -- Birds of New Zealand -- Maori Tales -- Evidence of Recent Existence -- Story of an English Seaman -- Examination of its Truth -- Fossil Eggs -- Comparison of Dimensions -- Larger Eggs in Madagascar -- Æpyornis -- Its Present Existence Possible -- Discovery of the Notornis -- Tertiary Britain -- Fossil Man -- Worked Flints -- Associated with Fossil Bones -- Species -- Age of Man -- Alluvium of the Nile -- Conclusions from it Delusive -- Rates of Geologic Changes Variable -- Examples -- Evidence of Contemporaneity of Man with the Tertiary Fauna -- Irish Elk -- State of its Remains -- Traditionary and Documentary Evidence of its Recent Existence -- Slaughtered by Man -- Proof of this Fact -- Great Accumulation of Skulls at Lough Gûr -- Weapons found with Elk Relics -- Proofs of its having been Cooked -- Manner of Hunting the Elk -- Ancient Irish Poem on Animals -- No Allusion to the Elk in it -- This Explained -- Notices of Early Oxen -- Their Fossil Relics -- Cæsar's Account of the Urus -- Wild Oxen in Ancient Greece and Western Asia -- Guy of Warwick and the Dun Cow -- The Turnbulls -- The Urus Fossil in Britain -- Vast Size of Fossil Oxen -- Scanian Fossil Ox bearing a Spear-wound -- Other Ancient Oxen -- European Bison -- British Bears -- Period of their Extinction -- Extinction of the Wolf -- Beaver Extinct in Britain -- Almost Extinct in Europe -- Dodo -- Accounts of Voyagers -- Seen in London -- Museum Relics -- Paintings -- Stelleria -- Cheiromys -- Moho -- Kaureke -- Manu-mea -- Nestor of Norfolk Island -- Great Auk -- Its Recent Abundance -- Catalogue of Specimens and Eggs in Cabinets -- Falkland Fox -- Musk Ox -- Hand-tree of Mexico -- Attempt to Estimate the Rate of Species-extinction -- Perhaps One a Year -- Question of Continuous Creation of Species -- Causes of Extinction -- Thoughts of Owen and Darwin -- Geographic Distribution an Important Element -- Fauna Peculiar to Islands -- Red Grouse -- Precariousness of its Existence, 1

II. THE MARVELLOUS.

Vulgar Love of Marvels -- False Causes -- Counter Tendency of Science -- Blood-Showers -- Traced to Butterfly-discharges -- Worms in Horse Pond -- Crimson Snow -- Discharges of Birds -- Real Red Rain -- Waters turned to Blood -- Oscillatoria -- Infusoria -- "Raining Cats and Dogs" -- Snail-showers -- Frog-showers -- At Portobello -- At Leeds -- On the Continent -- Fish-showers -- The Aberdare Shower -- Explanations and Criticisms -- Veritable Fish-showers in South America -- In India -- In Ceylon -- Torpidity of Fishes in Mud -- Lepidosiren -- Its Structure -- Amphibious Fishes -- Climbing Perch -- Salarias of Ceylon -- Provisional Structure, 96

III. MERMAIDS.

The Oannes of Berosus -- Assyrian Representations of Mermen -- Dagon and Atergatis -- Universal Belief in Mermaids -- Opinion of Swainson -- Sirens in Dongola -- Museum Specimens -- Japanese Ingenuity -- Accounts of Living Specimens -- Assumed to be Cow-whales -- Indian Accounts -- Scandinavian Myths -- Mermaids in Shetland -- A Love Story -- Cavern in Skye -- Veritable Narratives -- Hudson's Report -- Steller's Sea-ape -- Rencontre of Weddell's Seaman -- Merman seen at Landscrone -- Mermaid Captured by Six Shetlandmen -- Comments on the Story -- Critical Examination of it, 125

IV. THE SELF-IMMURED.

Toads Found in Wood and Stone -- Difficulties -- Bell's Caution -- Current Explanations -- Mr Bartlett's Toad in Fir-tree -- His Letter in Reply -- Mr Bree's Toad in Sandstone -- Mr Peacock's Toad in Lias -- Toad in Tamarind-wood in India -- Comments on the Report -- Toad in Flint at Blois -- Toad in Iron Ore -- _Audi alteram partem_ -- Mr Plant's Disappointment -- Seven Frogs in Nodules of Limestone -- Toad Immured in Old Wall -- Frog in Freestone -- Toads deep in Stiff Clay -- Experiments -- Dr Buckland Immures Toads in Oolitic Limestone and Sandstone -- Results -- Dr Buckland's Conclusions -- Toads Inclosed in Plaster of Paris -- Critical Examination of the Experiments -- Objections to the Conclusions -- Evidence rather in Favour of Common Belief -- Toad Sixteen Years in Closed-in Wall -- Toad in Mortar under a Horse-block -- Indefinite Torpidity of Wasps -- Mr Bartlett Finds a Bat in a Vault Closed for Twenty Years -- Mr Smith Finds a Bat in a Vault Closed for One Hundred and Six Years, 146

V. HYBERNATION OF SWALLOWS.

The Question -- Popular Belief -- Scientific Statements of Swallows' Torpidity and Submersion -- Achard's Statement -- White's Account -- Cases given by Bishop Stanley -- Supposed Torpidity of American Swift -- Hybernating Corn-crakes -- Barrington's Reports of Torpid Swallows -- Curator Wall's Story -- Fitton's Story -- Swallows in Britain during Winter -- Cases recorded by White -- Montagu -- Yarrell -- C. Bree -- Bell -- Hewitson -- Harcourt -- Rodd -- Hadfield -- W. Bree -- Johnston -- Gurney -- Examination of the Evidence -- Conclusion in Favour of Torpidity, 191

VI. THE CRESTED AND WATTLED SNAKE.

Seba's Museum -- His "Thesaurus" -- Figures of Curious Serpents -- What could they have been? -- Proofs that they were Ophidian, not Piscine -- Reports of Wonderful Serpent in Jamaica -- Singular Character of its Habitat -- Geological and Botanical Features -- Locale of Three-fingered Jack -- Crested Snake Killed here -- Negro Stories of its Voice -- Heard of in Hayti -- Author's Efforts to obtain a Specimen -- Occurrence of Two Specimens, 211

VII. THE DOUBTFUL.

Viper Swallowing her Young -- Conflicting Statements -- Physiologically not Impossible -- Reports of Witnesses -- Mr Percival's Account -- Mr Wolley's Corroboration -- Mr Bond's Testimony -- Case of the Rattlesnake -- Seen by Palisot de Beauvois -- Case of the Common Lizard -- Comments on the Evidence.

Madame Merian -- Her Truth Impeached -- Her Story of the Lantern-fly -- Denials of its Luminosity by Entomologists -- Confirmation of it by Lacordaire -- By Spinola -- By Wesmael -- English Insects only Occasionally Luminous -- Mole-cricket -- The Cause of _ignis fatuus_ -- Crane-fly -- Luminous Caterpillars -- Perhaps a Disease.

Madame Merian again Arraigned -- Her Account of Spiders Preying on Humming-birds -- Mr MacLeay's Denial and Proof of the Negative -- Comment on his Evidence -- Langsdorff's Evidence -- Ceylon Spiders -- Sir E. Tennent's Criticisms -- Collateral Evidence for the Affirmative -- Strong Webs of _Nephila_ -- The Solfuga of India -- Account of its Habits -- Attacks and Overcomes Small Birds -- Captain Sherwill Saw a Spider Eating a Bird in India -- Moreau de Jonnès' Direct Confirmation of Merian -- Mr H. Bates's Conclusive Testimony, 220

VIII. FASCINATION.

Power Attributed to Serpents of Paralysing their Prey -- Dr Bird's Story of Black Snake -- Rattlesnake and Squirrel -- Cobra and Lizard -- African Snake and Mouse -- Snake and Frog -- Habits of the Boomslange -- Snake and Shrike -- Snake and Mouse -- Dr Evans's Observations on Serpents at the Zoological Gardens -- Ringed Snake and Hedge Sparrow -- Snake and Robin -- Indian Serpent and Eel -- Attempted Explanations -- Mr Martin's Observations -- Barton Attributes the Phenomena to Maternal Love -- Explanation Inadequate -- The Power Exercised by Other Animals -- Lizard and Butterfly -- Scorpion and Fly -- Stoats and Hares -- Foxes and Pullets -- Eagle and Rabbit -- Attractive Power of Fire -- Entomologist's Bull's-eye Lamp -- Yard-fire in Alabama -- Insects come to the Fire -- Titmouse around a Gas-lamp -- Bell Rock Lighthouse visited by Herring-gull -- Fire Fascinates Toads in Africa, 242

IX. SERPENT-CHARMING.

Revulsion Inspired by the Serpent -- Persons Professing Immunity against Venomous Serpents -- Scriptural Allusions -- The Ancient Psylli and Marsi -- Babylonian Magician -- Atyr -- Immunity Distinct from Serpent-charming -- Hexagon the Ambassador -- Posterity of Psylli in Sennaar -- Bruce's Curious Account -- Various Plants Antidotic to Serpent-venom -- Experiments on _Simaba Cedron_ -- Peruvian Serpents and Remedies -- Various South American Antidotes -- Vejuco of Venezuela -- Grass of Dahomey -- Immunity of Mangouste -- Anecdotes -- Of Hedgehog -- Bruce's Account of the Cerastes -- Hasselquist's Observations -- Psyllic Woman -- Power of Spittle -- Influence of Music on Serpents -- Proceedings of Egyptian Charmers -- Rattlesnake Charmed by a Flute -- Cobra of India Attracted by Music -- Occasional Failures and Fatalities -- Anecdotes -- Comments -- Psylli in London -- Are the Poison-fangs Extracted? -- Power of Snake-stones -- Napier's and Tennent's Accounts -- Faraday's Analysis -- Plant-remedies, 263

X. BEAUTY.

Delight in Beauty -- Divine Appreciation of it -- Magnificent Flower in a Thicket -- Beauty of Deer -- Pet Fawn -- Eye of Gazelle -- Spotted Fur -- Zebra-stripes -- Birds -- Spoonbills on the Amazon -- Carolina Parakeet -- Cock of the Rock -- Soft blending in the Goatsuckers -- Resplendent Trogon -- Metallic Colours -- Rifle-bird -- Plume-birds -- Iridescent Hues -- Sun-birds -- Humming-birds -- Mexican Names -- Jamaican Humming-birds -- Mango -- Long-tail -- Cause of changeable Lustre -- Angle of Light -- Other Examples -- Region of the Amazon and Rio Negro -- Birds -- Fiery Topaz Humming-bird -- Cerro of Potosi -- Night-blowing Cactus -- Bar-tail Comet -- Pheasant tribe -- Chinese Pheasants -- Fire-back of Java -- Argus of Malacca -- Impeyan of India -- Polyprectons -- Peacock -- Wild Peacock-shooting -- Paradise-birds -- Emerald -- His Vanity in Dress -- Splendour of Insects -- Metallic Beetles -- Soft Refulgence -- Gem-scales -- Butterflies -- Changes of Hue -- Opalescence -- Ray on the "_Cui bono?_" -- Smith on South American Butterflies -- Splendour of Spiders -- in Jamaica -- in Borneo -- Tortoise-beetles -- Beauty of Plants -- Mosses -- Ferns -- Palms -- Grasses -- Bamboo -- in Jamaica -- in Madagascar -- Plantains -- Scene in Tahiti -- Beauty exceeds our Power of Imbibing it -- Flowers -- Orchideæ -- Sobralia -- Cypripedium -- Anæctochilus -- Dendrobium -- Huntleya -- Scene in Guiana -- Death of Reiss -- Rhododendrons of Himalayas -- of Borneo -- Lightning-tree of Madagascar -- Flamboyant -- Barbadoes Pride -- Burmese tree -- Le Bois Immortel -- Scene in Tartary -- Microscopic Beauties of London Pride, 302

XI. PARASITES.

Fleas on fleas _ad infinitum_ -- Intestinal Worms -- Economy of Creation -- Epiphyte Vegetation -- Life in a Sea-weed -- Orchids in the Tropics -- Parasitic Fig-trees -- Lianes -- in Ceylon -- Parasitism in Insects -- Ichneumons -- Kirby's Discovery of Stylops -- Economy -- Oil-beetle -- Medusa and Shrimp -- Medusa parasitic on Medusa -- Fish in Stomach of Star-fish -- Crab and Sponge -- Hermit Crab and Polype -- Parasites in Corals -- Ostrich parasitic on Ostrich -- Cuckoo and Cowpen birds -- Veneration of Small Birds for Cuckoo -- Slavery among Ants -- Nigger-hunting, 359

APPENDIX.

Sea-serpent -- Additional Testimonies to its Existence -- Statement of Consul Grattan -- Communication from Mr Stephen Cave, 387

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATE PAGE

I. FASCINATION (_Frontispiece_).

II. ENCOUNTER WITH A MOA, 36

III. SPEARING THE ANCIENT ELK, 56

IV. THE CLIMBING PERCH, 122

V. TOAD IN A HOLE, 158

VI. BIRD-EATING SPIDER, 240

VII. SNAKE-CHARMING, 278

VIII. ANTELOPES, 304

IX. PLUME-BIRD, 310

X. PEACOCK-SHOOTING, 326

THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY.

I.

THE EXTINCT.

If it is a scene of painful interest, as surely it is to a well-constituted mind, to stand by and watch the death-struggles of one of the nobler brutes,--a dog or an elephant, for example,--to mark the failing strength, the convulsive throes, the appealing looks, the sobs and sighs, the rattling breath, the glazing eye, the stiffening limbs--how much more exciting is the interest with which we watch the passing away of a dying species. For species have their appointed periods as well as individuals: viewed in the infinite mind of GOD, the Creator, from the standpoint of eternity, each form, each race, had its proper duration assigned to it--a duration which, doubtless, varied in the different species as greatly as that assigned to the life of one individual animal differs from that assigned to the life of another. As the elephant or the eagle may survive for centuries, while the horse and the dog scarcely reach to twenty years, and multitudes of insects are born and die within a few weeks, so one species may have assigned to its life, for aught I know, a hundred thousand years as its normal period, and another not more than a thousand. If creation was, with respect to the species, what I have elsewhere proved it was with respect to the individual,[1]--a violent irruption into the cycle of life--then we may well conceive this to have taken place at very varying relative periods in the life-history of the different species;--that is to say, that at a given date, (viz., that of creation) one species might be just completing, _ideally_, its allotted course, another just commencing, and a third attaining its meridian.

Certain it is, that not a few species of animals have died during the present constitution of things. Races, which we know on indubitable evidence to have existed during the dominion of man, have died out, have become extinct, so that not a single individual survives. The entire totality of individuals which constituted the species, have, in these cases, ceased to be. Some of these seem to have died at a very early era of human history; but others at a comparatively recent period, and some even within our own times. Even within the last twenty years several animals have been taken, of which it is highly probable that not a single representative remains on the earth; while there are others yet again, which we know to be reduced to a paucity so extreme, that their extinction can scarcely be delayed more than a few years at most. Thus we may consider ourselves as standing by the dying-beds of these creatures, with the consciousness that we shall soon see them no more; that the sentence is gone forth against them; that their sands are running to the last grains, and that no effort of ours can materially prolong their existence. The facts from which these conclusions are drawn are highly curious, and I shall endeavour to lay them, with as much brevity as they will allow, before my readers.

On that prochronic hypothesis, by which alone, as I conceive, the facts revealed by geological investigation can be reconciled with the unerring statements of Scripture,--every word of which is truth, the truth of a "God that cannot lie,"--we may assume the actual creation of this earth to have taken place at that period which is geologically known as the later Tertiary Era, or thereabout. When, on the third day, "the waters under the heaven were gathered together into one place, and the dry land appeared," it is not necessary to suppose that the form assumed by the emerging land was immediately that which it now has; we may, on the other hand, I think, assume as likely, that successive or continuous changes of elevation followed, which have been protracted, perhaps constantly decreasing in extent and force, to the present hour.[2]

Perhaps between the six days' work of Creation and the Noachic Flood, Europe became much altered in outline, and in elevation. It may have been, at first, a great archipelago, agreeing with the epithet by which it is designated in early Scripture, "the Isles,"[3] and by which it was subsequently known for ages. The Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Apennines, already emerged, were slowly uniting, and the Carpathians, the Balkan, the Taurus, and the Caucasus, were uprearing, while the vast regions to the north were still an expanse of open sea. England was probably united with the newly-formed European continent, and embraced Ireland in one great mass of unbroken land, which stretched far away into the Atlantic. Volcanoes were active in the north of Ireland, and in the west of Scotland, pouring forth those floods of fiery lava which have cooled into the columnar forms seen at the Giant's Causeway and the Cave of Fingal. Slowly the north of Europe emerged, and the great south-west expanse of Britain sank beneath the sea, leaving, it may be, the large island of Atlantis in mid-ocean, to be submerged by a later catastrophe.

Probably changes very similar were coevally taking place in Asia and North America, while the vast flat alluvial regions of South America were, perhaps, even still more recently formed, and a great Pacific continent was in course of subsidence, of which Australasia and Polynesia are the existing remains.

Such changes of elevation, and of the continuity of land, must effect considerable alterations of climate; and, therefore, it is not surprising to know that, in earliest ages, animals and plants flourished in regions to which they would now be altogether unfitted, and that many races existed then which have since died out; for geological and climatal modifications are among the most easily conceivable causes of the decease of species.

In the great swamps of emerging Germany, and in the, as yet, only half-drained valleys of Switzerland, lurked then the heavy Dinothere. Huger than the hugest elephant, he carried an enormous body of twenty feet in length, vast and barrel-like, which even his columnar limbs of ten feet long scarcely sufficed to raise from the ground. His uncouth head, elephantine in shape, was furnished with a short proboscis; and two tusks, short and strong, projected from the lower jaw, not curving upward, as in the elephant, but downward, as in the walrus. In the teeming marshes lurked this ungainly beast, half immersed, digging out with his mighty pickaxe-tusks the succulent roots that permeated the soft soil, which his sensitive trunk picked up, and conveyed to his mouth.

On the southern slopes of the slowly-rising Himalayas, already clothed with forests of teak, and palm, and bamboo, revelled the Sivathere, another heavy creature, of the bulk of a rhinoceros, and therefore not more than half equalling the German colossus. He too was a strange subject. With a proportionally enormous head, in form somewhat between that of the elephant and of the rhinoceros, minute sunken piggish eyes, and a short proboscis like that of the tapir, he carried two pairs of dissimilar horns. On the forehead were placed one pair, seated upon bony cores, not unlike those of our short-horn oxen. Behind these there rose another pair, large and massive, which were palmated and branching, like those of the fallow-deer, but on a gigantic scale. What sort of a body, and what kind of limbs, furnished the complement of this curiously-compound head, we do not exactly know; but surely it must have been a very remarkable form, as it browsed quietly and blamelessly, among the luxuriant shrubs of those sun-facing slopes.

In the same regions a land Tortoise of enormous bulk, far vaster than the vastest of now existing species, to which that ponderous one which will march merrily away with a ton weight on its back, is a mere pigmy, shook the earth with its waddle, and the forests with its hoarse bellowing. Broad roads, like our highways, were beaten by it through the jungle, along which it periodically travelled to the cool springs, leisurely sauntering, and tarrying to munch the fleshy gourds and cactuses that bordered its self-made track.

The plains of Siberia, stretching away towards the Arctic Ocean, sheltered countless hosts of huge pachydermatous quadrupeds. A species of Rhinoceros, not less bulky than those of the present age, roamed to the very verge of the Icy Sea; its hide, tough and leathery, was destitute of folds, but was clothed with tufts of rigid gray hair,--an ornament which is denied to our existing degenerates. Two horns, the front one of unusual massiveness and length, were seated, as in several of the African kinds, one behind the other, and were wielded by a head of great strength and development.

More remarkable still was that great hairy Elephant, called the Mammoth, which appears to have swarmed in those cold plains by myriads. Of equal dimensions to the Indian species of the present age, this denizen of the north had far more enormous curving tusks, and instead of the naked hide of those we are familiar with, his body was encased in black hair, with a thick under stratum of red curled wool, and bore a long mane on the ridge of the neck.