NATURAL HISTORY. 



805 



bottles, discharged in quick succes- 

 sion through the hands. After some 

 seconds the sensation returned, and 

 again at more distant intervals : 

 sometimes it was so strong as almost 

 to oblige the hand to let go the fish, 

 and at other times was but weak ; 

 and, after the ^.sh had given one 

 strong shock, it ^did not seem soon 

 to lose the power of communicating 

 one of similar strength ; and it was 

 sometimes found, that when the 

 shocks followed one another in quick 

 succession, the last Mcre stronger 

 than the first. 



The celebrated Spallanzani informs 

 us, that some few minutes before the 

 torpedo expires, the shocks which 

 it communicates, instead of being 

 given at distant intervals, take place 

 in quick succession, like the pulsa- 

 tions of the heart ; they are weak, 

 iudt-ed, but perfectly perceptible to 

 the hand, when laid on the fish at 

 this juncture, and resemble very 

 small electric shocks : in the space 

 of seven minutes, no less than three 

 hundred and sixty of these small 

 shocks were perceived. Spallanzani 

 dlso assures us of another highly cu- 

 rious fact, which he had occasion to 

 verify from his own experience, viz. 

 that the young torpedo can not only 

 exercise its electric faculty as soon 

 as born, but even while it is yet a 

 foetus in the body of the parent ani- 

 mal. This fact was ascertained by 

 Spallan/ani, an dissecting a torpedo 

 in a pregnant state, and which con- 

 tained in its ovarium several round- 

 ish eggs of dili'eretit sizes, and also 

 two perfectly formed foetuses, which, 

 when tried in the usual manner, 

 communicated a very sensible elec- 

 tric shock, and which was still more 

 perceptible when the litHc animals 

 were insulated by being placed on a 

 ^latc of gliss^ 



The electricity of the torpedo is 

 altogether voluntary, and sometimes, 

 if the animal be not irritated, it may 

 be touched, or even handled, with- 

 out being provoked to exert its elec- 

 tric influence. 



Natural History of the Land Sala- 

 mander. Bij the Count de la Cepede. 



It would appear that the more 

 remote the objerts of human curi- 

 osity are, the more man delights in 

 attributing to them wonderful qua- 

 lities, or at least in exaggerating 

 those which being seldom thorough- 

 ly known, in reality possess the ima- 

 gination, which, as one may say, from 

 time to time, requires to be stimu- 

 lated with wonder ; man wishes to 

 give full scope to his belief, and he 

 thinks he does not enjoy it with 

 sufficient freedom when he subjects 

 It to the laws of reason ; he ima- 

 gines that to use it he must carry 

 it to the greatest excess, and does 

 not consider himself as really master 

 of it, unless when he capriciously 

 refuses it to truth, or grants it to 

 accounts of the most chimerical be- 

 ings. Man cannot exercise this em- 

 pire of fantasy but when the light of 

 truth shines from a distance upoi* 

 the objects of this arbitary belief; 

 but when the space, time, or their 

 nature separate them from us : and 

 for fhis reason among all classes of 

 animals, there is porhaps none 

 which has given rise to more fables 

 than tliat of lizards. We have seen 

 properties, as absurd as imaginary, 

 ascribed to several species of ovi- 

 parous quadrupeds ; but human 

 imagination seems to havn surpassed 

 itself in the salamander, which has 

 been thought to be endowed with (he 

 most marvellous qualiliei. W hiUt. 

 3 f 3 tk« 



