Zoology, 371 



any more than to animalcula, but is simply the germination of the more 

 common mosses (Tortulae, ^jpna, Poljtricha, &c.), which, for want of 

 proper soil to support their vegetation, never get beyond what is in them 

 analogous to the seed-leaf in cotyledonous plants.'* 



Art. II. Zoology. 



Musical Ear. — "1 knew, at Paris, the widow of an Irish patriot, who 

 could not hear the * Exile of Erin ' sung, without being overpowered to such 

 a degree, that it would have been truly alarming, had not a flood of tears 

 come to her rehef. What is wonderful, so far from having a fine musical 

 ear, she had not even a commonplace relish for music. The same effect 

 was produced on her by the * Minstrel Boy ' of Moore. P., a young friend 

 of the writer, who has no taste for music, is similarly overpowered, even in 

 a crowded theatre, when * Home, sweet Home * is sung." {London Maga- 

 zine.) 



Characteristics of Feline Animals. — Animals of the cat kind are, in a state 

 of nature, almost continually in action both by night and by day. They either 

 walk, creep, or advance rapidly by prodigious bounds ; but they seldom run, 

 owing, it is believed, to the extreme flexibility of their limbs and vertebral 

 column, which cannot preserve the rigidity necessary to that species of 

 movement. Their sense of sight, especially during twilight, is acute ; their 

 hearing very perfect, and their perception of smell less so than in the 

 dog tribe. Their most obtuse sense is that of taste ; the lingual nerve in 

 the lion, according to Des Moulins, being no larger than that of a middle- 

 sized dog. In fact, the tongue of these animals is as much an organ of 

 mastication as of taste ; its sharp and^ horny points, inclined backwards, 

 being used for tearing away the softer parts of the animal substances on 

 which they prey. The perception of touch is said to reside very delicately 

 in the small bulbs at the base of the mustachios. {Wilson's Illustrations of 

 Zoology.) 



Food of the Humming-Bird. — From the circumstance of humming-birds 

 frequenting flowers, and thrusting their needle-formed bills into the blos- 

 soms, as bees and buttei*flies do their suckers (haustella), it has hastily been 

 concluded by naturalists, that, like these insects, they feed on honey. But 

 if such naturalists had paused for a moment to consider the form of the 

 bill and the tongue in the TVochilidae, their conclusions would not perhaps 

 have been so hasty. The trophi of insects which feed on the honey of 

 flowers, are beautifully adapted for procuring it by suction, which is com- 

 monly indispensable, the honey being in most cases spread thinly over the 

 surface of the nectary or the ungulse of the petals, and not in quantities such 

 as it might be drank like water. Now it is a fact, which is or may be well 

 known, that birds have almost no power of suction, in consequence of the 

 narrowness and rigidity of their tongue, as may be seen when they drink, 

 having to hold up their heads and depend upon the weight of the water 

 for transmitting it into the craw. Nobody, as far as we know, has described 

 the humming-bird drinking the honey from flowers in this manner, and in- 

 deed its tenacity and glutinous nature would entirely preclude this. Such 

 reasons would dispose us, therefore, to conclude, that the Trochilidae do not 

 feed on honey, though we did not possess irresistible proofs of the fact, that 

 they feed on insects. 



Wilson, the distinguished author of the American Ornithology, found, 

 upon repeated dissection, that the J'rochilus colubris had a quantity of 

 insects in its stomach, either whole or in fragments ; and the eccentric 

 Waterton affirms that humming-birds feed on insects. Of course, they 



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