268 LETERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



his place behind, the coachman whipped his 

 horses and drove on. The footman, who had 

 previously alighted, ran after the carriage and 

 jumped up behind into his former place. 



Not content with imitating the movements of 

 animals, the mechanical genius of the 17th and 

 18th centuries ventured to perform by wheels 

 and pinions the functions of vitality. We are 

 informed by M. Lobat, that Gen. Degennes, a 

 French officer who defended the colony of St. 

 Christopher's against the English forces, con- 

 structed a peacock which could walk about as if 

 alive, pick up grains of corn from the ground, 

 digest them as if they had been submitted to the 

 action of the stomach, and afterwards discharged 

 them in an altered form. Degennes is said to 

 have invented various machines of great use in 

 navigation and gunnery, and to have constructed 

 clocks without weights or springs. 



The automaton of Degennes probably suggested 

 to M. Vaucanson the idea of constructing his 

 celebrated duck, which excited so much interest 

 throughout Europe, and which was perhaps the 

 most wonderful piece of mechanism that was 

 ever made. Vaucanson's duck exactly resembled 

 the living animal in size and appearance. It 

 executed accurately all its movements and ges- 

 tures, it ate and drank with avidity, performed 

 all the quick motions of the head and throat 

 which are peculiar to the living animal, and, 

 like it, it muddled the water which it drank with 

 its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking 

 in the most natural manner. In the anatomical 

 structure of the duck, the artist exhibited the 

 highest skill. Every bone in the real duck had 



