84 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



less trunk suspended neck downwards that it may 

 bleed more freely, and the head placed bill upper- 

 most on a cold plate for the resting-place of the 

 severed neck. The snapping of the jaws of that 

 distant head, and the movements of that suspended 

 body, have startled more than one neophyte who 

 has been taken down to see " what a turtle can 

 do when its head is cut off;" especially if, as it 

 has happened to some of my friends, their fingers 

 have chanced to come within reach of the turtle's 

 bill at the snapping moment. 



That such post-decapitation snaps and motions 

 should raise horrible ideas of comparison is hardly 

 to be wondered at ; and I remember this instance 

 of the vitality of the turtle's head being brought 

 foiward in corroboration of the sickening story of 

 the blush on Charlotte Corday's face, when the 

 biutal executioner struck it on the cheek as he 

 held up the severed head to the execration of the 

 friends of the imp Marat, the idol of the canaille 

 that surrounded the guillotine. A friend saw an 

 execution in Italy by an instrument resembling the 

 Scottish maiden. He was very near the scene of 

 death, and when the criminal's head was held up, 

 he saw the eyes roll from right to left and from 

 left to right. Those best qualified to judge are 

 of opinion that this and similar movements are 

 merely convulsive, and that the severed head does 

 not feel. To say nothing of the stunning shock 

 to the nervous system, more especially if the pon- 

 derous trenchant axe falls upon the occiput, as it 

 did in the case of the unfortunate Louis XVI., 

 whose under-jaw was said to have been left on the 

 trunk, either from his shrinking just before the 

 fatal moment, or the shortness of his neck ; the 

 blood-vessels of the brain must be so speedily 

 emptied when a person suffers death by the guil- 

 lotine, that all sensation must vanish in a very 

 short space of time ; but it is very far from clear 

 that the head does not continue to live during that 

 short space, and if it feels even for a moment or 

 two, who shall say that in those moments it may 

 not suffer an eternity of agony and shame 1 It has 

 been hinted, that during that diabolical French 

 carnival, when terror reigned supreme, and frater- 

 nity the fraternity of Cain and his brother had 

 reached its culminating point, observations were 

 made on "the newly-severed heads that gave evi- 

 dence of action, if not of feeling, after their sep- 

 aration from the bodies of the victims of the revo- 

 lutionary tribunal. Some of our readers may 

 have heard of another horror of that accursed time. 

 At first, when the executions were few and far 

 between, the body was thrown into quicklime ; 

 but as the thirst for blood advanced, when the 

 guillotine was en permanence, and, though it rested 

 not, could not do the work of extermination fast 

 enough ; when the cord, and the pike, and the 

 sabre, and the musket, and the cannon, were all 

 ^brought into action, and the noyades were added 

 to the fusillades, the utilitarians began to think 

 that the quicklime operation was destructive of 

 much good animal matter. So the muscle of the 

 slaughtered was converted into adipocere for the 



candle manufactory, and their skins furnished no 

 small quantity of exquisite leather. Little did 

 the beauty of that age, as she charmed all eyes at 

 the ball, think whence came the light in which 

 she shone, or that the delicate glove which set off 

 her more delicate arm was not the spoil of the 

 kid.* 



More than enough of these horrors may they 

 never rise again to shock humanity in our time ! 

 and " return we" as a most excellent judge was 

 wont to say when leading back the jury from a 

 digression into which he had seduced them, but 

 always with the effect of arresting their attention 

 more strongly to the issue which they had to try 

 return we to the extraordinary vitality mani- 

 fested by the Testudinata under the most adverse 

 circumstances. 



A small tortoise was received in this country in 

 the winter ; in a state of hibernation, doubtless. 

 The condition of the little animal never occurred 

 to the recipient. The head and limbs were tucked 

 into the shell, and he put it into a drawer with a 

 collection of snuff-boxes, intending to have it 

 mounted as a companion to the rest. The drawer 

 was not opened for many months, and when it 

 was, it smelt, as the proprietor thought, rather 

 musty. He therefore pulled it out on a fine, 

 warm, moist, autumnal day, exposed it to the 

 open air on the outside of a window, and went 

 where his business called him. When he re- 

 turned, he thought he would take a look at his 

 drawer, and as soon as he cast a glance upon it, 

 he saw, as he thought, one of his snuff-boxes 

 walking about. He rubbed his eyes, and looked 

 again. His senses had not deceived him, for 

 there was the tortoise roused from his long, long 

 sleep, by the genial atmosphere ; and, though it 

 was not exactly in the state to make soup for a 

 fairy alderman, it soon gained strength under kind 

 treatment, and lived long. 



The alleged length of time during which sus- 

 pended animation may be continued, with the 

 power of again resuming the functions of life, 

 would be considered as fit only for fable, were it 

 not confirmed beyond all doubt. Hear honest and 

 true Benjamin Franklin, who thus relates a some- 

 what extraordinary anecdote of some flies which 

 had undergone a similar fate to that of " poor 

 Clarence," but with a much more happy result to 

 some of the party : 



They had been drowned in Madeira wine, ap- 

 parently about the time when it was bottled in 

 Virginia, to be sent hither (to London.) At the 

 opening of one of the bottles at the house of a friend 

 where I then was, three drowned flies fell into the 

 first glass which was filled Having heard it re- 

 marked that drowned flies were capable of being 

 revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed making 

 the experiment upon these ; they were, therefore, 

 exposed to the sun upon a sieve, which had been 

 employed to strain them out of the wine. In less 

 than three hours two of them began by degrees to 

 recover life. They commenced by some convulsive 



* The skin of a human being, properly prepared, is very 

 like line kid leather. 



