Scientific Intelligence. — Boiant^. 199 



preparing a poison. The blood of other reptiles is also consi- 

 dered as venomous, and is used for poisoning daggers or krisses. 

 It is known that the blood of a frog is employed by the Ameri- 

 cans for producing variegated feathers in parrots : some of the 

 feathers are plucked out, and the place where they grew im- 

 bued with the blood of the reptile, after which there are produ- 

 ced very beautiful feathers of various colours, — Journal de 

 Pharmacies Mar. 1826. 



36. Marabous. — The beautiful feathers so much in request for 

 ornaments, under the name oi Mai'obous^ belong to the tail of cer- 

 tain storks, the Ciconia Marabou. These birds are tamed and 

 kept in large flocks in Bengal, and the islands of the great Indian 

 Archipelago, and afford so extensive an article of commerce, 

 that many of the natives subsist by it. The plumes of Ciconia 

 Argala in Africa, and those of some other species, are inferior 

 in beauty, and less esteemed. 



37. Irish Elk.-^ Many facts prove that the quadruped popu- 

 lation of Great Britain, Ireland, and even of some of the neigh- 

 bouring large islands, was, geologically considered, at a compa- 

 ratively recent period, very different from what it is at present. 

 But these changes do not appear to have been confined to quadru- 

 peds alone ; for particular species of birds, formerly inhabitants of 

 this country, have disappeared, and their fossil remains, we doubt 

 not, will be found in our newer clays, marls, and calcareous 

 tufFas and sinters. These alterations in our native quadru- 

 peds and birds, must, we maintain, have been accompanied by 

 similar changes in the lower classes of animals, and the time is 

 not distant when we shall have enumerated, as occurring in the 

 newer alluvial deposites, fossil amphibia, fossil fishes, and nu- 

 merous fossil avertebral species, formerly inhabitants of the land 

 and waters of our European empire. It is indeed probable, 

 that not a century passes which is not marked in this country 

 by the loss of some species, not only of animals, but also of 

 plants, and the acquisition of others. An extended view of 

 this subject affords a series of historico-geological facts, that lead 

 to many beautiful views in regard to the history of those changes 

 that have taken place, and are still going on, among the ani- 

 mals and vegetables, and also in the climate, of the earth. The 

 most striking of our recently lost qufidrupeds is unquestionably 



