160 COMPENSATION. 



asked, why is the elephant's neck so short ? it may be an- 

 swered that the weight of a head so heavy, could not have 

 been supported at the end of a longer lever. To a form 

 therefore in some respects necessary, but in some respects 

 also inadequate to the occasion of the animal, a supple- 

 ment is added, which exactly makes up the deficiency un- 

 der which he laboured. 



If it be suggested, that this proboscis may have been 

 produced in a long course of generations, by the constant 

 endeavour of the elephant to thrust out his nose, (which is 

 the general hypothesis by which it has lately been attempt- 

 ed to account for the forms of animated nature,) I would 

 ask, how was the animal to subsist in the mean time, dur- 

 ing the process ; until this elongation of snout were com- 

 pleted 1 What was to become of the individual, whilst 

 the species was perfecting ? 



Our business at present is, simply to point out the rela- 

 tion, which this organ bears to the peculiar figure of the 

 animal to which it belongs. And, herein, all things corres- 

 pond. The necessity of the elephant's proboscis arises 

 from the shortness of his neck ; the shortness of the neck 

 is rendered necessary by the weight of the head. Were 

 we to enter into an examination of the structure and anat- 

 omy of the proboscis itself, we should see in it one of the 

 most curious of all examples of animal mechanism. (PI. 

 XXX, fig. 2, 3, 4, 5.) The disposition of the ringlets 

 and fibres, for the purpose, first of forming a long cartilag- 

 inous pipe ; secondly, of contracting and lengthening that 

 pipe ; thirdly, of turning it in every direction at the will 

 of the animal ; with the superaddition at the end, of a 

 fleshy production, of about the length and thickness of a 

 finger, and performing the office of a finger, so as to pick 

 up a straw from the ground ; these properties of the same 

 organ taken together, exhibit a specimen, not only of de- 

 sign, (which is attested by the advantage,) but of consum- 

 mate art, and as I may say, of elaborate preparation, in 

 accomplishing that design. 



II. The hook in the wing of a hat, is strictly a me- 

 chanical, and, also, a compensating contrivance. (PI. XXX. 

 fig. 6.) At the angle of its wing there is a bent claw, 

 exactly in the form of a hook, by which the bat at- 

 taches itself to the sides of rocks, caves, and buildings, 

 lying hold of crevices, joinings, chinks, and roughnesses. 

 It hooks itself by this claw ; remains suspended by this 

 hold ; takes its flight from this position ; which operations 



