618 



GECKOID^E. 



they would best agree ; and we may add that, of the 

 whole race they appear to be the ones in which such 

 organs, if they could be usefully applied in walking, 

 would be most essential. The 'inarch of these 

 creatures is very slow ; it is taken over many kinds 

 of surfaces, and surfaces placed at all imaginable 

 angles to the horizon ; and as the sucker in the 

 common descriptions of it is understood to act by 

 atmospherical pressure, which is of course equal in 

 all directions, it would of course be equally service- 

 able to the geckos, when back uppermost on the 

 floor, back undermost on the ceiling, or ascending or 

 descending the wall. If the sucker were the best 

 apparatus for this purpose we may rest assured that 

 the gecko would have it ; but it has no such pro- 

 vision ; and the rows of scales upon the under sur- 

 faces of its toes, and their marginal membranes, are 

 quite incompatible with a perfect expulsion of the air 

 from under the foot. It is possible, however, that 

 those margins, whether they extend wholly or partially 

 along the toes, may act as lateral branches of the toes, 

 and press downward by muscular action, so as to 

 enable the under surface of the foot to embrace more 

 of the asperities of the surface along which the animal 

 walks ; and the scaly irregularities upon the under 

 side of these feet are so very numerous that it would 

 not be easy to say at how many points of a surface 

 one foot at the same instant lays hold. 



The subject of climbing, and walking, or running 

 with the back undermost in animals which have not 

 the power of grasping, is a very interesting one in 

 the natural history of animals ; but in this respect 

 there is a wonderful resemblance between common 

 naturalists, or describers of animals, and common 

 portrait painters. They succeed tolerably well in mak- 

 ing out a. face a surface and the remarkable features 

 which distinguish one individual from another to com- 

 mon observation but if there is a hand or a foot in 

 the case they make sad work of that ; and just as the 

 face-painter's hand could not work if formed as he 

 represents it, and the foot could not walk, even so 

 the generality of animals could not budge an inch by 

 means of such organs of locomotion as the naturalists 

 in question are pleased to assign to them. It were 

 therefore to be desired that much more minute 

 attention should be paid to the actual structures of 

 animals, and especially to the feet, in which the dis- 

 play of mechanical principle, and perfect adaptation 

 of that principle, are not only more beautiful in 

 themselves, but come nearer to our practical useful- 

 ness in mechanical arts than any other parts of the 

 animal fabric. The internal operations of animals 

 circulation, respiration, digestion, secretion, sensation, 

 and the others, though very wonderful in themselves, 

 and well worthy of being studied, both as portions of 

 general knowledge, and as means of enabling us to 

 economise animal life, and deal kindly with it, have 

 yet little or no application to our common arts, 

 because we have no operation to perform, external of 

 our own bodies, which is of the same kind with these ; 

 and our own internal operations are carried on, not 

 only without our care, but often in spite of our 

 ignorant and ill-directed attempts, which if they were 

 not as futile as they are faulty, would do harm and 

 not good. 



The external actions of the animals, those which 

 we may regard as the uses of the structure of any 

 particular animal in nature, are not only much more 

 in accordance with what we are called upon to do, 



but they are really our models ; and many things 

 might be mentioned which men have derived no 

 little celebrity for contriving or inventing, which 

 might have been discovered at once, and in far 

 greater perfection, in the structure of the very best 

 known animal. When we express it in words, it 

 sounds somewhat oddly ; but it is nevertheless true 

 that if the most skilful mechanician is set on horse- 

 back, there is really much more instruction in 

 mechanics to be got from the horse than the man, 

 if the student but knew the way of finding it out. 



The feet of mammalia bear in many respects so 

 much general resemblance to our own organs of 

 motion, and prehension, that at least we believe we 

 have some notion of them. The feet of birds are 

 also tolerably open to our scrutiny ; and though our 

 oars and other contrivances for propelling bodies 

 through water, are very imperfect as compared with 

 the swimming apparatus of fishes, yet there is some 

 resemblance. There is curious point in this resem- 

 blance, or rather, perhaps, it is a want of resemblance 

 which is worth notice. We propel all our oared craft 

 by a sort of lateral fins, and steer by the rudder as a 

 sort of tail fin ; while the fishes are propelled chiefly 

 by the tail, and, in part at least, guided in their 

 motions by their lateral fins. But to return : the 

 feet of reptiles, and even those curious substitutes 

 which we find in the scales and flexures of the body 

 of those which have no feet, far more nearly resemble 

 those machines which we use in supplement to our~ 

 hands, than the feet of the higher orders or verte- 

 brated animals. Hence they are far more deserving 

 of our study with a view to the perfection of art ; 

 and when we notice how small and simple an appara- 

 tus in these animals suffices for the accomplishment 

 of a great number of purposes, we cannot fail to 

 perceive how much even our best machines must be 

 loaded with unnecessary lumber in which mere com- 

 plication of parts is often mistaken for that perfection 

 of which it is the very opposite. 



In this way animals which are so apparently 

 humble in their sphere of life, and so repulsive to our 

 common feelings as the majority of the gecko family 

 are, may still be made the instruments of useful 

 instruction, if we would but study their forms, and 

 observe how those forms are applied in their modes 

 of life. It is true that geckos are what we call filthy 

 creatures : they crawl in the mud, and search for larva) 

 and other things, on which they feed in the most 

 loathsome places, so that they often visit the abodes 

 of man, or at least traverse his apartments in no very 

 cleanly plight. They also poison provisions with the 

 tread of their feet, as has been already mentioned ; 

 but for all this they are the workmanship of the same 

 Author as the most elegant race upon earth ; the pur- 

 poses which they answer are part of the grand scheme 

 of nature's working ; and our wisdom lies, not in 

 avoiding them as odious, but in studying them as one 

 page, though a singular one, of the book of instruc- 

 tion. The greater part of the race have the toes 

 flattened, and with enlarged margins throughout their 

 entire length, and supplied on the under sides with 

 regular scales and folds ; but the number of toes 

 varies ; and on this as well as on other grounds they 

 are conveniently divided into five sub-genera, of 

 which we shall give a mere enumeration, without the 

 details of the species, the greater number of which 

 are merely museum ones, and as such perfectly 

 useless in the study of living nature. These five sub- 



