or Zoological Recollections, 317 



may reconcile a contradiction of words in Pliny, who in one 

 place affirms that the horse has no gall, and in another, that 

 the gall of a horse is poisonous, and forbidden to be touched 

 by the priests in the sacrifices of horses at Rome.* Sports- 

 men formerly hid themselves behind a figure made to resemble 

 a horse, and called a stalking-horse, to get unperceived near 

 their prey ; so to make another person entirely subservient to 

 your own purposes, is said to make a stalking-horse of him. 

 From the various methods of trimming and ornamenting the 

 tails of horses, have arisen the expressions of cut and long 

 tail, rag, tag, and bobtail. 



Our Saxon ancestors venerated the horse; whence the 

 figure of the white horse, in the vale of that name, in Berk- 

 shire ; and near Calne in Wiltshire. From his Saxon origin, 

 the king bears a white horse in his arms : and Hengist, or 

 Hengst, the founder of the Saxon dynasty, means an entire 

 horse. The white horse of death is an emblem of pure and 



* Shakspeare has said, in his character of Hamlet, 



" I am pigeon-liver' d, and lack gall 



To make oppression bitter," 



and Mr. James Fennell was, some time ago, wishing to know, in relation 

 to his projected notes on Shakspeare's mentions of natural objects, of 

 which I have spoken in p. 313., whether the pigeon is devoid of gall, as 

 the above lines intimate, or not ? I referred the query, not long after 

 receiving it, to Mr. Yarrell, who was so kind as to communicate the 

 following 



List of Animals which have not a gallbladder. — "Sir, Your enquiry, 

 What species, among Mammalia and birds, have, or have not, a gall-blad- 

 der ? will, at this late period of the month, pnly admit of, and must be 

 my excuse for, a short and hastily written reply. Among Mammalia, the 

 Quadrumana, Carnivora, and Marsupialia have a gall-bladder, I believe, 

 universally. In the Rodentia, there are some exceptions. Of the genus 

 ilf us, the black rat, the Norway rat, the common mouse, and some others, 

 have no gall-bladder ; but iliyoxus and Arvlcola, have gall-bladders ; the 

 porcupine is said to have a gall-bladder, but it is very small; and the 

 American species, //ystrix dorsata, has none. The sloths have no gall- 

 bladder, but I am not aware of any other instances among the Edentata. 

 In the Pachydermata there are several exceptions. The elephant, peccary, 

 rhinoceros, ^irax capensis, tapir, and all the species of the genus -E^quus, 

 are without the gall-bladder. Among the Ruminantia, the camel, the 

 giraffe, and the deer generally with solid deciduous horns, have no gall- 

 bladder ; but the hollow-horned ruminants, as sheep, goats, antelopes ; and 

 the species of the genus BoSy have a gall-bladder. In birds, the excep- 

 tions are much less frequent, considering the extent of the class. Those 

 without the gall-bladder are, as far as I am aware, the toucans and parrots, 

 pigeons, grouse, peafowl, and ostrich. In the gall-bladder the watery part 

 of the bile is aborbed, it becomes thicker, and its powers probably more 

 energetic. — Wm. Yarrell. Dec. 24. 1833. 



As, however, the pigeon, and all the animals noticed above, as devoid of 

 a gall-bladder, have, as I have understood from Mr. Yarrell, a biliary system, 

 not one of them can be said to " lack gall." — J. D. 



