THE BAY BAMBOO RAT. 611 
rabbit or fowl for the mere sake of sucking the hot blood as it pours from the fatal 
wound. 
The tree-loving and agile squirrel plays the same part among the rodents as the 
monkey among the quadrumana ; the flying squirrels have a close analogy to the colugo 
and the petaurists, and they again to the bats, which in their turn partake largely of the 
bird character and formation. The beaver and ondatra are evident reproductions of 
the aquatic idea, which is more thoroughly developed in the seals and whales, and is 
carried out to its greatest perfection in the fishes. The rodent capybara again, with its 
thick, coarse, bristly hair, heavy form, hoof-like claws, and water-loving propensities, is no 
indifferent representation of the pachydermatous water hog, which also may be looked 
upon as corresponding to the dugong and manatee. Lastly, the aspalacide, or rodent 
mole rats, are wonderfully similar to the true insectivorous moles, both in habit and 
formation of body. 
In many instances this phenomenon is exhibited in the reverse order, the members 
of other groups exhibiting a tendency towards the rodent type. The aye-aye, for 
BAY BAMBOO RAT.—Rhizomys bdadius. 
’ 
example, a quadrumanous animal, displays so strong a resemblance to the squirrels, that 
it was long ranked together with those animals by systematic naturalists. The hyrax 
again, or klip-daas, a pachydermatous animal, and allied closely to the hippopotamus, 
is externally so rabbit-like in form, and even in the arrangement of its teeth, that it was 
as a matter of course placed among the rodents, until Cuvier’s accurate eye discovered its 
true character. The insect-eating tupaias of Java, with their arboreal habits and long 
bushy tails, are so like the squirrels that the popular name of a squirrel and a tupaia is 
identical in the countries where they reside. 
Thus, in this single order, we find external representatives of every idea which is 
embodied in the whole series of vertebrated animals, and cannot but notice the curious 
tendency which is found throughout the entire animal kingdom of each province to 
intersect several others, and to receive some of its privileges without detriment to its 
perfection. In no instance is the boundary of any single province defined with a clear 
line of demarcation, and in every case the outline is extremely irregular, sending out 
peninsulas into the neighbouring districts and receiving into its own territory some 
portion of another district. Sometimes these embodied ideas seem to bear some analog 
RR 2 
