Extraordinary Growth of the Incisor Teeth. 2 1 



various, that I cannot fear that any one who has fairly entered 

 into their spirit will turn him away. The best argument, 

 indeed, I know in favour of our studies is derived from this 

 fact; for the Deity has never affixed pleasure (I mean, a 

 pleasure which the conscience approves, and which the me- 

 mory delights ever and anon to recall) to any sublunary pur- 

 suit that is unsuitable to the dignity and condition of man. 

 When the conscience utters her still voice to reprove or con- 

 demn, it is time to desist, and leave the path we are following, 

 however gaily it may be strewed ; but, where she approves, 

 there let us follow, certain of reward. And who among natu- 

 ralists ever found the fruit of his study turn ashes in the 

 enjoyment? Nor can it be: for what our internal monitor 

 approves, the Scriptures also commend, and send us for 

 instruction to the meanest things, to the ant and to the lilies 

 of the field ; and bid us seek out His wonderful works, and 

 to tell of them ; and thence borrow their moral lessons ; and 

 call upon us to praise the Creator, in " his contriving skill, 

 profuse imagination, conceiving genius, and exquisite taste ; in 

 his most gracious benignity and most benevolent munificence," 

 through his creatures, from the creeping things of the sea 

 even to his behemoth and leviathan. 



Art. III. On the extraordinary Grotvth of the Incisor Teeth, occa- 

 sionally met tvith in the Wild Rabbit. By Fred. C. Lukis, Esq. 



Sir, 



The extraordinary growth of the incisor teeth of the wild 

 rabbit (Lepus Cuniculus) has already been treated of in this 

 Magazine (Vol. II. p. 134., and Vol. III. p. 27.) ; but, as two 

 additional instances of this deviation from the stated order 

 of nature have come under my notice, I beg to annex some 

 sketches relating to them, as it is instructive to compare these 

 anomalies of nature. 



The specimen (Jig. I.) presented an animal rather below 

 the usual size, apparently not an old one ; the incisors of the 

 upper jaw proceeded regularly in contact as far as the cutting 

 edge of the posterior or small pair of teeth in that jaw (which 

 were about double their usual length); they then diverged 

 equally on both sides, and, when the mouth closed, touched 

 the base of the lower pair, dividing the gums so as to give 

 the appearance of two tongues when the mouth was partly 

 opened. (Jig. 2.) These teeth had acquired a length of 

 about four times those in the ordinary rabbit. The incisors 



c 3 



