506 RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE RODENT ANIMALS. 



is short and marked, and the claws are rather small. The peculiar head is of an egg-like 

 form. 



THERE are several other genera belonging to this curious family, among which may be 

 noticed the genus Ctenomys, containing the TUCUTUCO, a native of Magellan Straits. This is 

 also a burrowing animal, and the peculiar name by which it is known has been given to it on 

 account of the curious cry which it utters as it is engaged in its subterranean labors, and which 

 is said to resemble the word "Tucntuco." 



ON taking a retrospective view of the rodent animals, the reader will not fail to observe 

 the frequency with which they reproduce some idea which is more fully manifested in other 

 orders of the animal kingdom. The destructive idea is not more strongly developed in the 

 lion than in the rat, which will attack and kill animals of much greater strength and bulk 

 than itself. It is a truly bloodthirsty being, and will kill many a 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 petau- 

 rists, 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 pachy- 

 dermatous water hog, which also may be looked upon as corresponding to the diigong and 

 manatee. Lastly, the aspalacidae, 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 example, a quadru- 

 manous 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 

 pachydennatous animal, and allied closely to the hippopotamus, is externally, and even in the 

 arrangement of its teeth, so rabbit-like in form, 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. 



All external objects are, in their truest sense, visible embodiments or incarnations of 

 Divine ideas which are roughly sculptured in the hard granite that underlies the living and 

 breathing surface of the world above ; pencilled in delicate tracery upon each bark flake that 

 encompasses the tree-trunk, each leaf that trembles in the breeze, each petal that fills the air 

 with fragrant effluence ; assuming a living and breathing existence in the rhythmic throbbings 

 of the heart-pulse that urges the life-stream through the body of every animated being ; and 

 attaining their greatest perfection in Man, who is thereby bound, by the very fact of his exist- 

 ence, to outspeak and outact the Divine ideas, which are the true instincts of humanity, before 

 they are crushed or paralyzed by outward circumstances. Only thus can man be truly the 

 image and likeness of God, only thus can the Divine ideas be truly manifested in him to the 

 world. For just in proportion as he shrinks from speaking the truth that is in him, or from 

 acting the good that is in him, so far he stifles the commencing outbirth of Divine power, and 

 becomes less and less godlike. 



Hence the necessity for the infinitely varied forms of animal life. Until man has learned 

 to realize his own microcosmal being, and will himself develop and manifest the god-thoughts 

 that are contimially inbreathed into his very essential nature, it needs that the creative ideas 

 should be incarnated and embodied in every possible form, so that they may retain a living 

 existence upon earth. 



