ARCTOTIS 



ners are peculiar. They have five grinders on each 

 side in the upper jaw, and four in the under, the 

 summitg of which have sharp tubercles, so that they 

 seem capable of subsisting on insects, and even on 

 the flesh of larger animals, as well as on vegetables. 

 Their bodies are thick and clumsy, their legs short 

 and thick, their head large and flat, their ears short 

 and blunted, and their tail short and apparently inca- 

 pable of motion. 



A R D E A. 



189 



TJJFtt 



The Marmot. 



Some of them inhabit the most bleak and dreary 

 situations, the summits of the most elevated moun- 

 tains, such as the Al ps, and near the margin of the region 

 of perpetual snow. The chief food of these is no doubt 

 the hard alpine grasses, and other plants which are 

 found in regions of so scanty vegetation ; and these 

 are found only for a part of the year, not more than 

 hulf of it in the more elevated haunts of the animals. 

 But in their habits they are as seasonal as the places 

 where they reside ; for when the cold weather sets 

 in they descend into the depths of their burrows, and 

 there remain in a dormant or hybernating state dur- 

 ing the whole of the inclement season. Thus their 

 years of activity are reduced to half years, and during 

 these they are very slow in their motions, and at no 

 time is there such action in their system as to occa- 

 sion that waste and necessity for food which take 

 place in more active animals. Accordingly, barren 

 as their pastures comparatively are, they get very fat 

 toward autumn; and are covered with lard like little 

 pigs, or perhaps rather stored with grease like bears 

 when they retire to their winter domiciles. Their 

 hibernation, which is not, even in the greatest depth 

 of its quietude, a total cessation of all the animal 

 functions, is gradual at its commencement; and the 

 recovery from it is also gradual. Owing to these 

 circumstances, the fat is wholly absorbed by the time 

 that the animals are able to come abroad ; and in the 

 brief space of their short year, they have to recover 

 their strength, rear their broods, and again become 

 fat preparatory to a new hybernation. 



At all seasons they are ground animals, and spend 

 the whole of their time, except what is taken up in 

 feeding, in their burrows, which they dig with great 

 ease and rapidity and to a considerable depth, always 

 sloping downwards, so that the dwelling may be be- 

 yond the reach of the intense cold of the winter, and 

 yet so contrived as to be in no danger of filling with 

 water during the rains or the melting of the snow. 



Some of them are animals of Considerable size, not 

 less than the common wild rabbit. But though easily 

 taken, as their progressive motion is slow, and it is 

 not very difficult to dig them out of their burrows 

 they are of little value to mankind as game. In 

 autumn, when they are fat, the mountaineers do eat 

 them, but they are not very palatable to those who 



have a choice of food. It seems indeed to be a 

 pretty general fact, if not a law, in warm-blooded 

 animals, that the more sluggish the functions of life 

 are, the flesh of the animal is the less palatable and 

 the less stimulant. But though the marmots are thus 

 not hunted with the same daring assiduity as the 

 chamois and some others of their fellow mountaineers, 

 they are still not without their destroyers, for the 

 keen glance of the eagle is upon them as soon as 

 they quit their burrows. There are various species, 

 inhabiting different countries, and having different 

 manners ; for the details of which see the article 

 MARMOT. 



ARCTOTIS (Linnaeus). A numerous family of 

 herbs and under shrubs from the Cape of Good 

 Hope. Linnaean class and order, Syngenesia neces- 

 saria ; natural order, Composite. Generic character : 

 anthodium scaly, scales squamose ; receptacle bristly ; 

 pappus chaffy. 



This genus of ornamental plants, though agreeing 

 in essential character, are a good deal varied in 

 habit : hence botanists have divided the family into 

 five sections, founded on the different form of the 

 leaves, nature of the stem, or on having no stem. 

 Many of them have handsome star-like flowers, 

 several are splendid ; and the metallic tints reflected 

 from the rays of the flowers are, in many of the species, 

 very imposing. Of the shrubby species there are 

 sixteen ; and of herbaceous fifteen ; some of the latter 

 being annuals. 



ARDEA Heron. A very striking and by no 

 means an uninteresting genus of birds, belonging to 

 the order of Grallida; or waders, and to the natural 

 family of the Gruidce or cranes. By the elder natu- 

 ralists this genus was made a very extensive one, 

 and species were included in it which had little 

 analogy to each other in their manners, such as the 

 cranes, the storks, the night herons, and the bitterns. 

 There is even still a disposition to retain the bitterns 

 in the genus by those who exclude the cranes and 

 storks. But this is in violation of all natural affinity, 

 because the bitterns really differ more from the 

 herons than the herons do from the cranes and 

 storks. The bitterns, no doubt, breed in marshy 

 places, and spend the greater part of their time there ; 

 but in their food and feeding they have some slight 

 analogy to gallinaceous birds, though, as they feed 

 in secret, the precise nature of their food is not 

 accurately known. There is reason to believe, how- 

 ever, that the}' feed chiefly upon worms, molluscous 

 animals, the young of frogs, and other aquatic reptiles, 

 and very rarely upon vegetable substances. They 

 never migrate but from necessity, and that during the 

 inclement season, and they are not seen on the wing 

 except in the twilight, and then chiefly or exclusively 

 during the breeding season. 



The herons, on the other hand, do not breed in 

 marshes, but on trees, near water if they can so 

 obtain them, but on trees, whether very near water or 

 not. They subsist almost exclusively by fishing ; 

 and they fish openly in the small streams, ponds, and 

 shallows of lakes, often having to journey for many 

 miles through the air to find food both for themselves 

 and their young. It is true they are not found upon 

 the waters during the heat of clear and sunny days; 

 but then the cause of their not being so is in the 

 prey more than in the birds. The cool of the morning 

 and evening, but more especially the former, are the 

 times at which the little fishes are most easily caught, 



