ZOOLOGY.

CHAPTER VIII.

Notices regarding some of the principal Features in the Zoology of the Countries described in the preceding Chapters.

Peculiarity in the Physical Structure of the Inhabitants of Upper EgyptAnimals numerous in Abyssinia-Monkeys-Bats-Canine AnimalsFennec-Hyenas-Lynxes-Feline Animals-Supposed Origin of our Domestic Cat-Jerboa--Different Kinds of Wild Hog--Hippopotamus --Rhinoceros-Equine Animals-Giraffe-Antelopes-Birds of PreyLammergeyer-Vulture-Owls-Pigeons-Hornbills-Parrots - Bustard-Storks-Water Fowl-Reptiles-Crocodile --Cerastes--Fishes -Shells-Pearl Muscles--Insects-Tsaltsalya Fly-Locusts.

Ir has been the practice of several natural historians to com mence their systematic expositions with a "Nosce teipsum." followed by a brief description of the human race; thus, with more modesty than truth, affecting to classify themselves with the beasts that perish. That many of us are very "brutish persons" is a fact which cannot be gainsaid; but still there is something sufficiently preposterous in the grave and formal enunciation of those characters by which mankind in general are allied to, or distinguished from, the brute creation. The human race possesses indeed the attributes of animal life in common with the inferior orders; but we should never cease to retain a firm conviction that these are "the accidents, not the essentials, of our nature;" and that however proper it may be to mention them as the technical statements of physiology, they are yet totally inadequate to the description of a being who bears within him the germ of an immortal life, and knows that he was created "but a little lower than the angels."-" Those persons," says Buffon, "who see, hear, or smell imperfectly are of no less intellectual capacity than others; an evident proof that in man there is something more than an internal sense. This is the soul of man, which is an independent and superior sense-a lofty and spiritual existence-entirely different in its essence and action from the nature of the external senses."+

In conformity with these impressions we have hitherto, in the zoological disquisitions which occur in this Library, as

* Grinfield's Letters to Laurence.

† Encyclopædia Britannica, 7th edition, vol. iii. p. 159.

signed the most prominent place to the quadrumanous order which we regard as the most highly organized of the brute creation, and have altogether avoided what we consider as the degradation of the human race. We shall not here depart from the observance of an accustomed rule, further than to notice very briefly a peculiarity in the physical structure of some of those tribes, with the general history of which the reader has already been made acquainted.

It is long since Winkelman observed that the ear was invariably placed much higher in the Egyptian statues than in the Greek; but he attributed this peculiarity to a systematic practice in Egyptian art, of elevating the ears of their kings in like manner as the Greek artists are known to have exaggerated the perpendicularity of the facial angle in the heads of their gods and heroes. M. Dureau de la Malle, in his recent visit to the museum at Turin, so rich in Egyptian monuments, was particularly struck with this feature in all the statues of Phta, Moris, Osymandias, Ramesses, and Sesostris. Six mummies recently arrived from Upper Egypt were at that time under examination, and afforded him the means of ascertaining whether this special character of the higher situation of the orifice of the ear really existed in the sculls of the natives of the country. He was surprised to find in them, as well as in many other sculls from the same place, of which the facial angle did not differ from that of the European race, that the orifice of the ear, instead of being, as with us, on a line with the lower part of the nose, was placed on a line with the centre part of the eye. The head in the region of the temple was also much depressed, and the top of the scull elevated, as compared with those of Europe, from one and a half to two inches. It is somewhat singular that this character should have hitherto eluded the observation of so many professional anatomists, and of all the travellers who have traversed Egypt. As a striking corroboration of so singular a structure, which may not inaptly be regarded as the Egyptian type, and a newlyobserved variety of the Caucasian race, M. Dureau cites as an example M. Elías Boctor, a Copt, native of Upper Egypt, who has been twenty years in Paris as a professor of Arabic. He was well known to M. Dureau, who had constantly remarked the great elevation of his ears, which indeed had rather the appearance of two little horns than of the ordinary human appendages. The Hebrew race are moreover said to resemble the Egyptians in several particulars. The same author examined and found that the ears of M. Carmeli, a Jew, professor of Hebrew, although not placed so high as in the mummies or Copts of Upper Egypt, were still very remarkable as compared with those of the natives of Europe.*

* Revue Encyclopédique, and Literary Gazette, June 23, 1832.

Before proceeding to notice a few of the more remarkable of the wild species, we may observe that the domesticated animals of Abyssinia consist, as is usual in most countries, of oxen, sheep (chiefly a small black variety), goats, horses, mules, asses, and few camels. Two kinds of dogs are frequent, one of which, like the Pariah dog of India, owns no master, but lives in packs attached to the different villages; while the other is a fleet and powerful animal, of general use for the purposes of the chase. From its earliest days the latter is taught to run down game, especially Guinea fowls, and Mr. Salt informs us that its expertness in catching them is astonishing. It never loses sight of the birds for an instant after it has once started them from their haunts. Tame cats are to be seen in every house in Abyssinia.*

According to Bruce, no country in the world produces a greater number and variety of animals, whether wild or tame. The mountains, where free from wood, are covered to their summits with a rich and luxuriant verdure. The long and refreshing rains of summer are not too suddenly absorbed by the solar rays, and the warmth is sufficient to promote vegetation without producing those withering effects which usually result from heat without moisture. The horned cattle, some of which are furnished with humps, are of various kinds and colours. Certain breeds are without horns, while others are remarkable for the gigantic size of these organs. "But the reader may

with confidence assure himself that there are no such animals as carnivorous bulls in Africa, and that this story has been invented for no other purpose but a desire to exhibit an animal worthy of wearing these prodigious horns. I have always wished that this article and some others of early date were blotted out of our Philosophical Transactions; they are absurdities to be forgiven to infant physic and to early travels, but they are unworthy of standing among the cautious well-supported narrations of our present philosophers. Though we may say of the buffalo that it is of this kind, yet we cannot call it a tame animal here; so far from that, it is the most ferocious in the country where it resides; this, however, is not in the high tem perate part of Abyssinia, but in the sultry kolla, or valleys below, where, without hiding himself, as wild beasts generally do, as if conscious of superiority of strength, he lies at his ease among large spreading shady trees near the clearest and deepest rivers, or the largest stagnant pools of the purest water. Notwithstanding this, he is in his person as dirty aud slovenly as he is fierce, brutal, and indocile; he seems to maintain among his pwn kind the same character for manners that the wolf does among the carnivorous tribe."t

*Salt's Voyage, Appendix, p. 38. † Bruce's Travels, vol, v. p. 82,

We possess a very imperfect knowledge of the quadrumanous tribes of this portion of Africa, although we know that several species of monkeys abound throughout the wilder districts, the largest of which Mr. Salt says is called Gingero, and is nearly allied to those found in Arabia. Another smaller species, with a black face, is named Alestoo in the Tigré, and Tota in the Amharic, language. The fields of millet in Abyssinia are frequently destroyed by flocks of them, aided by baboons.

The family called Cheiroptera includes those remarkable flying quadrupeds generally known by the name of bats. The genus Molossus of Geoffroy is distinguished by the fierceness of its aspect, and by a large head and blunted muzzle, from which have no doubt been derived the generic name, which signifies mastiff. Their limbs are strong and muscular, their bodies heavy, and their organs of flight rather disproportioned to their general size. They dwell in caverns and other subterranean excavations, and it is probable that they live chiefly by escalading precipices and trunks of trees, as in some species, such, for example, as M. alecto and abrasus, the wings are narrow, and so cut up by the arching of the posterior margin of the flying membrane as to serve rather the purpose of a parachute than for regular or sustained flight. It was long thought that all the species of the genus were peculiar to the New World; but this idea is now discovered to be erroneous. The travels of M. Rüppel in Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia have made us acquainted with many new species which are truly referable to the genus in question. It will also no doubt prove interesting to the student of the classics, as well as to the natural historian, to learn that many of the animals indicated by Aristotle and Pliny have been discovered by that enterprising traveller. His investigations prove that these classical species differ in many important points from those with which they have hitherto been vaguely regarded as identical, and that modern naturalists have erred in asserting their existence in the countries of Southern Africa.

The species described by M. Temminck, and named Dysopes Rüppelii, in honour of the traveller, is nearly related to that mentioned by Geoffroy under the name of Nyctinomus Egyptiacus. Its size is the same as that of the Vespertilio murinus of Europe. The ears are excessively large, shell-shaped, overshadowing the face; their internal margin is not reunited, but projects in front from a common base; a large internal fold covers the eyes. The tail is thick and depressed, and does not exceed the length of the body, while rather less than the half is enveloped in the interfemoral membrane. The great toe of the posterior limbs is somewhat more free than the others. The fur is fine, close set, and abundant, and there is a border of it on both sides of the

membranous wings, along the flanks, close to the body. The muzzle is thinly covered with black divergent hairs. The lips are large, plaited, and somewhat pendulous. The upper surface is throughout of a uniform mouse-colour; the inferior parts are very similar in colour, but of a paler hue. The hair upon the toes is long, rather arched, and whitish. The wings are very narrow, but of considerable extent. The male measures from tip to tip about 15 inches, the female not much above 13. The total length of the body and tail is about six inches. This species inhabits the vaults of the ancient Egyptian buildings, and other subterranean places in the north of Africa. Specimens exist in the museums of Leyden and Frankfort.

Among the canine animals we shall specify the Aboukossein of Nubia, described by Rüppel (pl. xi.) under the name of Canis pallidus. This species is suspected by Baron Cuvier (Règne Animal, vol. i. p. 152) to be identical with the Adive or Canis corsac of Gmelin, so common over the vast deserts of Central Asia, from the Volga to India. It is said never to drink, and its general habits are those of a fox.

The jackal (Canis anthus) is well known in these parts of Africa. It stands higher on its legs, has a sharper muzzle, and shorter tail than those of India, being identical with such as occur in Senegal.

As a sub-genus of the dogs we may rank the painted hyena of Temminck, described by Mr. Burchel under the name of Hyena venatica. Mr. B. kept a living specimen of this animal chained up in a stable-yard for thirteen months, during which time it retained its natural ferocity of disposition. It hunts in packs both during the night and day. The fur is irregularly blotched or mottled with white and fawn colour, gray and black. Its ears are large, with black tips. Its size is that of a wolf. This species, though classed with the hyenas, which in some respects it greatly resembles, possesses, however, the dental system of a dog. We notice it in this place in consequence of its having been recently ascertained by M. Rüppel to inhabit Kordofan.*

Great contrariety of opinion has existed among naturalists as to the nature and relationship of the animal described by Bruce under the name of fennec, and in addition to merely scientific discussion, some not very amiable inferences have been deduced by that spirit of rivalry which, though useful in as far as emulation is inconsistent with lethargy, is sometimes apt, especially in acrimonious minds, to overflow its bounds. The discovery of the animal in question, though usually assigned to our Abyssinian traveller, is likewise claimed by a Swedish gentleman,

* Atlas zu der Reise im Nördlichen Afrika, Taf. xii.