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THESE are general relations, or the relations of parts which are found, either in all animals, or in large classes and descriptions of animals. Particular relations, or the relations which subsist between the particular configuration of one or more parts of certain species of animals, and the particular configuration of one or more other parts of the same animal (which is the sort of relation that is, perhaps, most striking), are such as the following :—

I. In the swan; the web-foot, the spoon-bill, the long neck, the thick down, the graminivorous stomach, bear all a relation to one another, inasmuch as they all concur in one design, that of supplying the occasions of an aquatic fowl, floating upon the surface of shallow pools of water, and seeking its food at the bottom. Begin with any one of these particularities of structure, and observe how the rest follow it. The web-foot qualifies the bird for swimming; the spoon-bill enables it to graze. But how is an animal, floating upon the surface of pools of water, to graze at the bottom, except by the mediation of a long neck? A long neck accordingly is given to it. Again, a warm-blooded animal, which was to pass its life upon water, required a defence against the coldness of that element. Such a defence is furnished to the swan, in the muff in which its body is wrapped. But all this outward apparatus would have been in vain, if the intestinal system had not been suited to the digestion of vegetable substances. I say, suited to the digestion of vegetable substances: for it is well known, that there are two intestinal systems found in birds: one with a membranous stomach and a gastric juice, capable of dissolving animal substances alone; the other with a crop and gizzard, calculated for the moistening, bruising, and afterward digesting, of vegetable aliment.

Or set off with any other distinctive part in the body of the swan; for instance, with a long neck. The long neck, without the web-foot, would have been an encumbrance to the bird; yet there is no necessary connexion between a long neck and a web-foot. In fact, they do not usually go together. How happens it,

therefore, that they meet, only when a particular design demands the aid of both.

II. This natural relation, arising from a subserviency to a common purpose, is very observable also in the parts of a mole. The strong short legs of that animal, the palmated feet armed with sharp nails, the piglike nose, the teeth, the velvet coat, the small external ear, the sagacious smell, the sunk, protected eye, all conduce to the utilities or to the safety of its underground life. It is a special purpose, especially consulted throughout. The form of the feet fixes the character of the animal. They are so many shovels; they determine its action to that of rooting in the ground; and every thing about its body agrees with this destination. The cylindrical figure of the mole, as well as the compactness of its form, arising from the terseness of its limbs, proportionably lessens its labour; because, according to its bulk, it thereby requires the least possible quantity of earth to be removed for its progress. It has nearly the same structure of the face and jaws as a swine, and the same office for them. The nose is sharp, slender, tendinous, strong; with a pair of nerves, going down to the end of it. The plush covering, which, by the smoothness, closeness, and polish, of the short piles that compose it, rejects the adhesion of almost every species of earth, defends the animal from cold and wet, and from the impediment which it would experience by the mould sticking to its body. From soils of all kinds the little pioneer comes forth bright and clean. Inhabiting dirt, it is, of all animals, the neatest.

But what I have always most admired in the mole is its eyes. This animal occasionally visiting the surface, and wanting, for its safety and direction, to be informed when it does so, or when it approaches it, a perception of light was necessary. I do not know that the clearness of sight depends at all upon the size of the organ. What is gained by the largeness or prominence of the globe of the eye, is width in the field of vision. Such a capacity would be of no use to an animal which was to seek its food in the dark. The mole did not want to look about it; nor would a large advanced

eye have been easily defended from the annoyance to which the life of the animal must constantly expose it. How indeed was the mole, working its way under ground, to guard its eyes at all? In order to meet this difficulty, the eyes are made scarcely larger than the head of a corking pin; and these minute globules are sunk so deeply in the skull, and lie so sheltered within the velvet of its covering, as that any contraction of what may be called the eye-brows, not only closes up the apertures which lead to the eyes, but presents a cushion, as it were, to any sharp or protruding substance which might push against them. This aperture, even in its ordinary state, is like a pin-hole in a piece of velvet, scarcely pervious to loose particles of earth.

Observe then, in this structure, that which we call relation. There is no natural connexion between a small sunk eye and a shovel palmated foot.

Palmated feet might have been joined with goggle eyes; or small eyes might have been joined with feet of any other form. What was it therefore which brought them together in the mole? That which brought together the barrel, the chain, and the fusee, in a watch; design: and design, in both cases, inferred, from the relation which the parts bear to one another in the prosecution of a common purpose. As hath already been observed, there are different ways of stating the relation, according as we set out from a different part. In the instance before us, we may either consider the shape of the feet, as qualifying the animal for that mode of life and inhabitation to which the structure of its eyes confines it; or we may consider the structure of the eye, as the only one which would have suited with the ac tion to which the feet are adapted. The relation is manifest, whichever of the parts related we place first in the order of our consideration. In a word; the feet of the mole are made for digging; the neck, nose, eyes, ears, and skin, are peculiarly adapted to an underground life; and this is what I call relation.

CHAP. XVI.

Compensation.

COMPENSATION is a species of relation. It is relation when the defects of one part, or of one organ, are supplied by the structure of another part or of another organ. Thus,

I. The short unbending neck of the elephant, is compensated by the length and flexibility of his proboscis. He could not have reached the ground with. out it; or, if it be supposed that he might have fed upon the fruit, leaves or branches of trees, how was he to drink? Should it be asked, Why is the elephant's neck so short? it may be answered, that the weight of a head so heavy could not have been supported at the end of a longer lever. To a form, therefore, in some respects necessary, but in some respects also inadequate to the occasion of the animal, a supplement is added, which exactly makes up the deficiency under which he laboured.

If it be suggested that this proboscis may have been produced, in a long course of generations, by the constant endeavour of the elephant to thrust out his nose, (which is the general hypothesis by which it has lately been attempted to account for the forms of animated nature), I would ask, How was the animal to subsist in the mean time; during the process; until this prolongation of snout were completed? What was to become of the individual, whilst the species was perfecting?

Our business at present is simply to point out the relation which this organ bears to the peculiar figure of the animal to which it belongs. And herein all things correspond. The necessity of the elephant's proboscis arises from the shortness of his neck; the shortness of the neck is rendered necessary by the weight of the head. Were we to enter into an examination of the structure and anatomy of the proboscis itself, we should see in it one of the most curious of all examples of animal mechanism. The disposition of the ringlets and fibres, for the purpose, first, of forming a long cartilaginous pipe: secondly, of contracting

number and position of the eyes themselves. The spider has eight eyes, mounted upon different parts of the head; two in front, two in the top of the head; two on each side. These eyes are without motion ; but by their situation, suited to comprehend every view which the wants or safety of the animal rendered it ne cessary for it to take.

VII. The Memoirs for the Natural History of Animals, published by the French Academy, A. D. 1687. furnished us with some curious particulars in the eye of a chameleon. Instead of two eyelids, it is covered by an eyelid with a hole in it. This singular structure appears to be compensatory, and to answer to some other singularities in the shape of the animal. The neck of the chameleon is inflexible. To make up for this, the eye is so prominent, as that more than half of the ball stands out of the head; by means of which extraordinary projection, the pupil of the eye can be carried by the muscles in every direction, and is capa ble of being pointed towards every object. But then, so unusual an exposure of the globe of the eye requires, for its lubricity and defence, a more than ordinary protection of eyelid, as well as a more than ordinary sup ply of moisture; yet the motion of an eyelid, formed according to the common construction, would be impeded, as it should seem, by the convexity of the organ. The aperture in the lid meets this difficulty. It enables the animal to keep the principal part of the surface of the eye under cover, and to preserve it in a due state of humidity without shutting out the light: or without performing every moment a nictitation, which, it is probable, would be more laborious to this animal than to others.

VIII. In another animal, and in another part of the animal economy, the same Memoirs describe a most remarkable substitution. The reader will remember what we have already observed concerning the intestinal canal; that its length, so many times exceeding that of the body, promotes the extraction of the chyle from the aliment, by giving room for the lacteal vessels to act upon it through a greater space. This long intestine, wherever it occurs, is, in other animals,

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