FULLER QUOTATIONS FROM l ZO ONOMIA. ' 229 



wings instead of legs, as the smaller birds, for purposes 

 of escape. Others, great length of fin or of membrane, 

 as the flying fish and the bat. Others have acquired 

 hard or armed shells, as the tortoise and the Echinus 

 marinus. 



"Mr. Osbeck, a pupil of Linnasus, mentions the 

 American frog-fish, Lophius Histrio, which inhabits the 

 large floating islands of sea-weed about the Cape of 

 Good Hope, and has fulcra resembling leaves, that the 

 fishes of prey may mistake it for the sea- weed, which it 

 inhabits.* 



" The contrivances for the purposes of security extend 

 even to vegetables, as is seen in the wonderful and 

 various means of their concealing or defending their 

 honey from insects and their seeds from birds. On the 

 other hand, swiftness of wing has been acquired by 

 hawks and swallows to pursue their prey ; and a pro- 

 boscis of admirable structure has been acquired by the 

 bee, the moth, and the humming bird for the purpose of 

 plundering the nectaries of flowers. All which seem to 

 have "been formed "by the original living filament, excited 

 into action ly the necessities of tJie creatures which possess 

 them, and on which their existence depends. 



''From thus meditating on the great similarity of 

 the structure of the warm-blooded animals, and at the 

 same time of the great changes they undergo both 

 before and after their nativity ; and by considering in 

 how minute a portion of time many of the changes of 

 animals above described have been produced ; would it 

 be too bold to imagine that in the great length of time 



* < Voyage to China,' p. 113. 



