LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



33 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NAT- 

 URALIST. 



PARTHENOPE, Ligeia, Leucosia these are 

 pretty names as ever were bestowed on the off- 

 spring of a river god and a muse ; nor are Molpe, 

 Aglaophonos, and Thelxiope* which some will 

 have it were the true designations of the daugh- 

 ters of Achelous and Melpomene unmusical. 

 Blest with powers of voice and fascination equal 

 to Sontag for, however the habitues of her maj- 

 esty's theatre may reasonably doubt it, they too 

 were irresistible the sirens, unlike that fair, 

 spotless enchantress, poured forth their gush of 

 song to the ruin of their entranced audience, 

 though they certainly never executed Rode's va- 

 riations ; it may, indeed, be doubted whether any 

 sublunary being, with the exception of the gifted 

 countess, ever could at least with her supreme 

 excellence. And so these accursed of Ceres con- 

 tinued in their course of musical murder, sur- 

 rounded by the corses of their victims, whose re- 

 mains were wreathed with flowers, radiant with 

 beauty, as our own Etty has depicted them, till 

 their career was closed by the wily Greek, who 

 had received his lesson from another mistress of 

 enchantment ; and so they perished. 



But, it seems, their crimes were not sufficiently 

 expiated. Years rolled on their ceaseless course. 

 Greece was swallowed up by Rome, who in her 

 turn fell at the feet of the Goth ; and in the ful- 

 ness of time there arose a wizard from the great 

 northern hive, he of the polar star, who waved 

 his wand, aroused the sirens from the annihilation 

 into which they had escaped, and degraded them 

 into one of the lowest reptile forms of America. 



The Arabs have a saying that monkeys are en- 

 chanted men, and the most elegant of modern 

 poets has been heard to declare that they reminded 

 him of poor relations ; but what is the lot of hu- 

 manity so transformed, compared to the degrada- 

 tion of sirens into Perennibranchiate Batrachians 1 



What on earth are Perennibranchiate Batra- 

 chians ? 



A Batrachian, in the language of the learned, 

 means a reptile of the great frog family, and a 

 Perennibranchiate there is certainly some ses- 

 quipedality in the word, as there too often is in 

 those coined by the scientific ; with all due sub- 

 mission to their worships be it written a Pe- 

 rennibranchiate Batrachian is one that does not 

 go through metamorphosis, like a common frog 

 for instance, (which first bursts upon the aquatic 

 world as a tadpole, then acquires limbs, and then 

 drops his tail and gills, as becomes a citizen of 



* Or, according to others, Thelxione. The maternity 

 is given by some genealogists to Calliope, by others to 

 Terpsichore ; but the better opinion is, that Melpomene 

 was the mamma of these deluders. Like other irregular 

 branches of families they became troublesome to theirs ; 

 V 116 ng fr [ end ' Hera > excited them to contend with 

 the Muses, who conquered them, and, as a punishment 

 for their presumption, tore off their wings. 



the terrestrial as well as the watery world thence- 

 forth blessed with lungs,) but remains a gill- 

 breathing, muddy, fishlike groveller, all the days 

 of its life. 



In my zoological obituary for last March, I find 

 the death of Siren lacertina recorded towards the 

 end of the month. The melancholy event took 

 place in the garden of the Society in the Regent's 

 Park, where the siren had lived for many years 

 in the parrot-house, domiciled in a vessel of pond 

 water, with a bottom of deep mud. It was 

 during its life as vivacious as anything existing 

 in inky-looking mud could be, and throve well on 

 worms with some dozen and a half of which it 

 was daily supplied and small fish. It was very 

 eel-like in its motions, though blessed with two 

 small anterior extremities ; but as you may wish 

 to know something about the animal, curious 

 reader, here is a description of it, which those 

 who are not inquisitive may skip if they please. 



The generic character of the sirens consists in 

 an elongated form, nearly similar to that of the 

 eels. There are three external branchial or gill 

 tufts on each side. No posterior feet, but two 

 anterior small ones. Not a vestige of a pelvis. 

 The head depressed ; the gape of the mouth mod- 

 erate ; the muzzle obtuse ; the eye very little ; 

 the ear concealed ; the lower jaw sheathed with 

 a horny substance, and aimed with several rows 

 of small teeth ; the upper jaw toothless ; on the 

 palate numerous small retroverted denticles. 



Such is the reptile of which Dr. Garden, in 

 the years 1765, 1766, sent a description to Ellis 

 and Linnaeus, when the immortal Swede estab- 

 lished an additional order for the siren in his class 

 Amphibia the order Meantes. Such is an out- 

 line of the creature which Cuvier pronounced to 

 be one of the most remarkable of the class of rep- 

 tiles, nay, of the whole animal kingdom ; a bold 

 declaration, but borne out by the anomalies of its 

 structure, its relationship to different families, and 

 its approximation even to different classes. 



Thus, Pallas, Hermann, Schneider, and Lace- 

 pede, classed it as the larva of a great unknown 

 salamander. Camper placed it among the fishes. 

 He was followed by Gmelin, who made an eel of 

 it, conferring on it the name of Mur&na siren; 

 and 't is almost a pity that the last-named worthy 

 doctor was dead wrong in making it a Murecna ; 

 it would have been so everlasting classical for 

 that enlightened republican, brother Jonathan, who 

 loves to copy the Romans, to have thrown his 

 slaves to the Murcena. But he may still be imi- 

 tative, and throw them to the sirens. Only, in- 

 stead of going to the rocks and deep blue sea 

 where the sirens of old haunted as you, young 

 gentleman, have read in your Virgil* he must 

 condemn them to be laid in the marshes where 

 the luxuriant crops of rice wave. There, and in 

 swamps, under the entangled roots of time-worn 

 trees, the American siren lurks, and thence ob- 



v. 684. These rocks are understood to have 

 been the island of Caprese, the retreat of the tiger-like 

 Tiberius, who, it is said, could see like a cat in the dark. 



