LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



83 



position for enterprise. Yet there is a season of 

 the year (usually the beginning of June) when his 

 exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tip- 

 toe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, 

 traversing the garden, explores every wicket and 

 interstice in the fences, through which he will 

 escape if possible ; and often has eluded the care 

 of the gardener, and wandered to some distant 

 field. The motives that impel him to undertake 

 these, rambles seem to be of the amorous kind ; his 

 fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, 

 which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and 

 induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn 

 deportment. 



It is very possible that Cupid may have then 

 been bestriding him. White's description looks 

 Tery like the restlessness of passion 



Nee tibi Vespero 

 Sursjente decedunt amores, 

 Nee rapidum fugiente solem. 



But the love of liberty and, not improbably, an 

 annual migratory impulse in search of fresh pas- 

 ture, may have been the prevailing motive. At 

 all events, neither he nor the other fye^foixos are 

 without their comforts. Each of them is inde- 

 pendent of any capricious landlord, and both snail 

 and tortoise, if they could speak, might say what 

 it is a great privilege to be able to say, " Death 

 alone can turn me out of this house." 



The tenacity of life with which the Testudinata 

 are gifted would be hardly credible to those who 

 have not closely studied the subject. No well- 

 regulated mind can read of some of the experi- 

 ments which have- been made to place the fact 

 beyond all doubt without being shocked ; but 

 averse as every good man must be to the infliction 

 of pain or death, it is but fair to allow that such 

 experiments may be more cruel in appearance 

 than in reality. Redi's operations must have 

 been attended with instant death if made upon 

 the higher and warm-blooded vcrtebrata. His 

 tortoises lived, and showed no signs of acute 

 suffering. 



In the beginning of November he opened the 

 skull of a land-tortoise, removed every particle of 

 brain, and cleaned the cavity out. The animal 

 was then set at liberty, but, instead of dying or 

 remaining motionless, it groped its way about 

 freely as its inclination directed, without the aid 

 of sight ; for when the animal was deprived of its 

 brain it closed its eyes, which it never opened 

 afterwards. The wound was left open, but 

 skinned over in three days, and the tortoise con- 

 tinued to go about till the middle of May, when 

 it died. On examining the skull, the cavity 

 which had contained the brain was found empty 

 and clean as it had been left, with the exception 

 of one small, dry, black clot of blood. 



But this was not a solitary instance. Many 

 other land-tortoises were subjected to the same 

 treatment in November, January, February, and 

 March. The result was similar, with some ex- 

 ception ; for some moved about freely, but others, 

 though they showed that they were alive by 

 other motions, did not. Fresh-water tortoises, 



when made the subjects of the same experiment, 

 acted like the others, but did not Jive so long. 

 But Redi had a notion, that if the marine tortoises 

 were deprived of their brain they would live for a 

 very long time ; for having received a turtle 

 which was very much wasted and faint, he opened 

 its skull and treated it in every respect as he had 

 treated the land-tortoises, and, emaciated as it 

 was, it lived six days after the operation. 



But Redi proved the enduring vitality of these 

 reptiles by a more decisive experiment. In the 

 month of November he cut off the head of a large 

 tortoise ; the headless animal did not expiie till 

 twenty-three days had elapsed. This decapitated 

 existent did not, indeed, move about like those 

 which had only been robbed of their brain ; 

 but when any mechanical stimulus, such as prick- 

 ing or poking, was applied to the anterior or 

 posterior extremities, the headless trunk drew 

 them up with considerable liveliness, and exhibit- 

 ed many other motions. To free himself from 

 all doubt as to the vitality of these animals under 

 such circumstances, Redi cut off the heads of four 

 other tortoises. Twelve days after decapitation 

 he opened two of them, when he beheld the 

 heart beating, and saw the blood enter and leave it 



These were Redi's experiments : for them he 

 is answerable. But it is only just to remark, 

 that in this frightful state of life in death there 

 may be more of irritability than sensation. The 

 restoration of mutilated organs in the reptiles is 

 wonderful to the uninitiated. Look at the eye : a 

 subject for Newton. I remember to have seen in 

 a large glass bowl a number of aquatic lizards, 

 which were undergoing the curative and repro- 

 ductive process, which kind nature had initiated 

 ay, and carried out completely after they had 

 been deprived of an anterior extremity or an eye. 

 In both cases the organs were reproduced. The 

 anterior extremity is nothing when compared to 

 the organ of vision ; but, after all, the cornea 

 through which we see such glorious sights is 

 nothing but a modification of the skin, and the 

 rest of that wonderful orb in a low grade of ani- 

 mal nature may be easily supplied . It may occur 

 to some that the clot in the cranium of Redi's 

 brainless tortoise was an attempt to restore the 

 great centre of the nervous system ; but the 

 probability is, that nature was endeavoring to 

 repair' the injury, and to secure as much of life as 

 was to be obtained under the shocking circum- 

 stances. 



The length of time during which Redi's head- 

 less tortoise lingered will not surprise those who 

 have seen how much life remains, and for how 

 long, in a turtle after all its wasting by the un- 

 healthy voyage. We have been taught, and truly 

 with respect to the higher grade of animals, that: 

 in the blood is the life. But in the case of the- 

 testudinate which is to furnish forth the soup, the 

 calippee, the steaks, the currie, for which and. 

 upon which aldermen live, any one who wishes to 

 descend into the abysses from which that am- 

 brosial feast is furnished forth, may find a head- 





