298 AMERICAN TESTUDINATA. Part II. 



limbs are even sometimes adapted to different purposes. All these features are 

 brought to a climax in Man, whose vertical station presents the highest contrast 

 with the horizontal position of the body in Fishes; whose head is so raised as to 

 stand free above the whole frame, while the hands have become the willing tools 

 of the manifestations of his mental powers. The gradation, as far as the structure 

 is concerned, is as evident as possible, from the unwieldy, massive, horizontal body 

 of the Fish, up to the commanding attitude of Man; and that this structural 

 gradation stands in immediate correlation to the degree of the psychological 

 development is equally evident, when we compare the mental powers of Man 

 with the imperfect faculties of the Fishes. 



With reference to the motions in particular, Dr. Weinland has presented very 

 interesting considerations, in a paper read not long ago before the Boston Society 

 of Natural History.^ He remarked, that there exist in animals two kinds of 

 motions, entirely different from one another, which, however, have not as yet been 

 duly distinguished. If we watch attentively the motions of a dog, for instance, 

 we soon perceive that they are partly subservient to himself only ; such are his 

 motions when eating, drinking, etc. ; while he performs many other motions with 

 his eyes, his ears, his tail, his whole body, by which he evidently intends to show 

 to other animals or to Man, the state of his mind, what he thinks, feels, or wants. 

 Dr. Weinland calls the first kind of these motions " subjective ; " the second, 

 "sympathetic." He showed that the first are common to all animals, while the 

 second appear only in the higher types,^ and culminate in Man. Moreover, the 

 higher perfection of the organs for sympathetic motions, as observed in Man, 

 expresses at the same time his higher psychological standing. The gradation 

 observed in this respect, in the different classes of Vertebrata, is not less appre- 

 ciable. The Fishes, lying horizontally in the water, move simultaneously the whole 

 body by the lateral bendings of the vertebral column, and the fins perform only 

 locomotive functions; the eyes are little movable, and without expression. Fishes 

 have no voice, indeed hardly any means by which they can communicate with 

 their fellow-creatures, and yet they may be seen moving together in such a man- 

 ner as to indicate a kind of concert; I have even observed some playing with 

 one another. 



In Batrachians and Reptiles, the sympathetic motions are already more varied, 

 the relations of the individuals of the same species to one another are more exten- 

 sive and more frequent, and their aljility to emit sounds almost universal, though 

 these sounds are still very monotonous. With the Birds and Mammalia, all these 



1 See Dr. 'Weinlancl, "On the Motions of Ani- ^ It is impossible, for the present, to extend 



mals" in Proc. Boston Society of Nat. History, 1856. such investigations to the faculties of Invertebrata. 



