102 



A N A R R H I N U M A N A S. 



There is no air-bag, the stomach is fleshy and the 

 intestines short. 



On the British coasts it is rarely found exceeding 

 three, or at the most four feet in length ; and in the 

 clear water on the rocky shores, where its favourite 

 food is abundant, it is a very delicious culinary fish, 

 especially when thoroughly boiled as soon after it 

 comes out of the water as possible ; and indeed it 

 should seem that all the fishes which frequent rocks, and 

 feed chiefly upon mollusca and Crustacea, are firmer 

 and finer in flavour than those that eat one another. 



Formidable as are the teeth of this fish, and sus- 

 picious as is the vulgar name " wolf," which has been 

 given to it, it does not appear that it preys upon or 

 intermeddles with any of the other finny tribes, but 

 goes on quietly in its rocky pastures, cracking its 

 periwinkles, its limpets, and its other shells, and 

 using its powerful teeth only for that purpose. The 

 teeth stand a little forwards, so that it can take up a 

 very small shell from the bottom, or bite the limpets 

 from the rock ; and though the fact is not fully 

 established, it is by no means unlikely that it may 

 sometimes rise a considerable way out of the water, 

 and reach those which the ebb tide leaves there. The 

 figure given in the previous page will afford an idea 

 of the general shape of the fish. 



ANARRHINUM (Desfontaines). A family con- 

 taining three species of biennial herbaceous plants, 

 natives of Europe, belonging to the Linnaean class 

 and order, Didynamia Angiospermia. Natural order, 

 Scroph ularitKB. 



Generic character : calyx five-parted ; corolla two- 

 lipped, throat open, swollen at the base, and some- 

 what horned ; upper lip margined, the lower palated, 

 or a little raised, three-lobed ; stamens connivent ; 

 anthers three-celled ; style thickish ; capsule two- 

 celled, four-valved, valves bursting. 



The daisy-leaved antirrhinum grows abundantly in 

 the south of France. Desfontaines also found two 

 species in Africa, which he has named A. pedatum and 

 A.jruticosum ; and the same species Bory de St. Vin- 

 cent found in Spain, in the provinces of Valentia and 

 Andalusia: the name was given in contradistinction 

 to the snapdragon (Antirrhinum), from being without 

 the peculiar flower of that plant 



ANAS, the duck genus ANATID^E, the duck 

 family. We have taken these two titles together, 

 and purpose noticing them both in this article, com- 

 mencing with anatulee; because then we shall follow 

 the order of nature, and save both reference and 

 repetition. 



ANATID/E. The general characters of the anatidee 

 are the bill broad and flattened, covered for the 

 greater part with what may be considered as a sen- 

 tient skin, but often with a hard nail on the tip of 

 the upper mandible : the edges of the bill are fringed 

 with small transverse laminae, which, however, vary 

 with the habits. The wings are of moderate length; 

 the tail is in general short ; the body large and flat ; 

 the legs rather far backward and wide apart from 

 each other ; the plumage in general close and diffi- 

 cult to be wetted ; and on the under part often mixed 

 with fine down. The characters vary much in the 

 genera, and even in the species ; but still there is a 

 family likeness among them all. 



This is one of the most important families of birds, 

 both in a natural history and an economical point of 

 view. In the former, it constitutes that part of the 

 succession between birds chiefly in the air and birds 



chiefly in the water, which extends from the gallina- 

 ceous and wading birds on the one hand, to the true 

 diver?, which seek their food wholly under water, and 

 chiefly in the sea, on the other. As the three motions 

 of flying through the air, running upon the earth, and 

 swimming along the surface of the water or under it, 

 are more perfect in some species of birds than in any 

 other vertebrated animals ; and as, though in each 

 species there is universally one which is predomi- 

 nant, and forms the chief locomotive character of the 

 bird ; there are many which possess at least two in 

 considerable perfection, and some which possess all 

 the three: the birds are the best class in which to 

 study the locomotive organs and their action in rela- 

 tion to the other parts of the economy. 



When we consider them in this way, we often find 

 that families, which are very opposite in their charac- 

 ters at what may be called the one extremity, gra- 

 dually approach each other, as they reach the other 

 extremity ; and that there the compound character is 

 taken up by a new family, which, in the progress of 

 its genera, gradually assumes a character different 

 from the two of which it appeared to be at the first 

 made up, and goes on changing till it again is merged 

 in another which is in great part new. Not only this, 

 but we can trace the order in an inverted direction, 

 and find the characters of one family divide into two, 

 which gradually diverge from each other till the cha- 

 racters of the first one are lost, and we pass to a new 

 family on each part of the division, having no relation 

 or resemblance to that from which we set out. If, 

 in these analogical tracings, we take along with us 

 both the external and the internal characters, we 

 soon find ourselves in' possession of far more useful 

 ornithological knowledge than if we had ever so long 

 attended to the mere characters of individuals ; and 

 indeed it is owing to this analogical mode of proce- 

 dure that all the branches of natural history have, of 

 late years, made so much progress. When we take 

 the external form and the internal structure, compare 

 them with each other and with the observed habits, 

 and carry this compound analogy from race to race, 

 we have a certain and easily used key to their whole 

 economy ; and not merely to their economy in wild 

 nature, but to the way and the means of their domes- 

 tication, and their value when that is accomplished. 



The family of the Anatidce is properly divided into 

 the three genera of swans (cygnus), geese (atiser), 

 and ducks (anas}. [The systematic names, from what 

 language soever they are derived, are always best in 

 the singular number, as being collections, expressive 

 of the one set of characters in which all species agree, 

 and not the many that are the foundation of the 

 specific distinctions. The names of families, and 

 higher divisions, are better in the plural number, as 

 expressing a plurality of generic characters. [See 

 CLASSIFICATION.] 



In tracing the gradation from the less to the more 

 aquatic, it is very evident that we should end with 

 the ducks : because many of them find their food 

 almost exclusively in the sea, seldom come on land 

 even for the purpose of breeding, and are very ill 

 adapted for walking. 



But when we turn our attention to the other two 

 genera, we find some of the characters of the gajlina- , 

 ceous birds and the cranes so much mixed up in each, 

 that it is not easy to say which has the greater analogy, 

 though, upon the whole, the geese perhaps most re- 

 semble the gallinaceous birds, and the swans the 



