M A M M A L I A. 



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constant change. The progress of this change, so as 

 to be perceivable by us, may require a longer or a 

 shorter time, a moment for instance, for the appearance 

 and reappearance of the lightning's flash, and millions 

 of years (we know not how many) before a world or 

 a system of worlds shall require to be renovated. 

 But still it is sound philosophy to conclude that as 

 are the parts so must be the whole, and the difference 

 is a question only as to time. 



Some such general views as these are necessary to 

 put us on our guard, when we endeavour to examine 

 the natural uses of the productions of nature; and 

 when we attempt to define one production as the 

 used and another as the user, we bring ourselves 

 under the lash of the philosophic satirist : 



Proud man exclaims, "see all things for my use !" 

 " See man for mine," exclaims a pampered goos ! 



With the understanding that the great use of the 

 animal to nature is its feeding 1 , and the reciprocal use 

 of nature to the animal is the food and the other 

 means of life which the animal affords, we may pro- 

 ceed to take a brief glance at the feeding organs in the 

 mammalia. Those organs may be conveniently divided 

 into three sections : Organs of prehension, that is, 

 organs for bringing the food within the possession of 

 the animal after that animal has, by means of its 

 organs of locomotion, arrived at the place where the 

 food exists. Organs of preparation, or those by means 

 of which the animal dresses the food so as to be fit 

 for the ultimate process of being changed into the 

 substance of the animal. Organs of assimilation, in- 

 cluding the stomach and intestinal canal, and also the 

 various apparatus through which the chyle or pre- 

 pared food passes, before it mingles with the blood of 

 the animal. The succession here might indeed be 

 carried much further than the three steps which have 

 been enumerated ; for we might at least attempt to 

 ascertain by what organisation and what process the 

 food of the animal, which enters the blood apparently 

 as one simple substance, is changed into each of those 

 numerous textures of which the body of the animal is 

 made up. Here, however, we fall upon a difficulty 

 the solution of which is beyond the reach of the 

 human powers ; for these operations have no appa- 

 ratus other than the organ which is formed ; and 

 therefore each of them involves the question of the 

 principle of life, a principle of which, in any thing 

 but its mere phenomena, we must remain for ever 

 ignorant. 



Organs of Prehension. Of some of these we have 

 already spoken, when noticing the other functions 

 which they perform, and which in many instances are 

 their predominating, or more essential and appropriate 

 functions as for instance, the paw of the ape, though 

 the animal may seize its food with it, is yet more 

 useful to it in a state of nature, in climbing; to the 

 place where that food is obtained. Those which we 

 have noticed under their prehensile function, as simply 

 taking hold, we shall not again repeat ; and thus the 

 subjects of our present remarks will be reduced within 

 a much narrower compass. They will fall under the 

 following heads : prehensile noses, prehensile lips, 

 prehensile teeth, and prehensile feet ; it being under- 

 stood, in the case of the last, that the foot is used 

 exclusively in seizing the food. 



A prehensile nose, or proboscis, as it is termed, is 

 a rare organ among the mammalia ; the only instance 

 in which it decidedly appears being that of the ele- 



phant. In both the'Asiatic and African species of 

 that splendid animal, the proboscis is, however, one of 

 the most important organs of the whole range of the 

 mammalia ; and it may with truth be said, that while 

 no organ is more perfect in its structure, there is none 

 for which the possessor is so totally without a sub- 

 stitute. In this, of course, we allude to external 

 organs, for if any of the internal organs of an animal 

 is entirely destroyed or removed, that animal must 

 perish as a matter of course. Among the other 

 mammalia we scarcely know of any external organ 

 for which there is noisome substitute, so that, however 

 severe may be the privation, and however great the 

 inconvenience, which the animal suffers from the want 

 of it, still it is not utterly wretched, the functions of 

 life can still be carried on, and various actions can be 

 performed by the other parts of the animal, the per- 

 formance of which, in ordinary cases, devolves entirely 

 upon the one which in the case of the mutilated animal 

 is wanting. 



We have remarkable instances of this in the human 

 subject. There are many instances recorded of per- 

 sons who, being entirely deprived of sight from their 

 infancy or from a very early period of life, yet acquired 

 so much acuteness and tact in the remaining organs 

 of sense, that they not only performed many opera- 

 tions which are usually supposed to depend entirely 

 upon sight, but actually excelled in the performance 

 of them. 



The proboscis of the elephant is perhaps the most 

 extraordinary instrument in the whole range of the 

 animal kingdom, and we could not name another 

 which is of such essential and indispensable use to its 

 owner. Deprived of this the elephant would be 

 utterly helpless, incapable of either eating or drinking, 

 and therefore unable to live. Why the largest of the 

 land mammalia should be thus exclusively thrown 

 upon a single instrument for the supply of all its 

 wants, craving in proportion to its size, is a singular 

 question in physiology, but it is one which we are 

 quite unable to solve. From the fact, however, of 

 there having been, in former times, an elephant in 

 the polar countries, from the probability that the 

 megatherium may have been a proboscised animal, and 

 from the fact that the native grounds of the existing 

 elephants both of Asia and Africa, have been nar- 

 rowed within the period of recorded history, we must 

 conclude that the elephant, in its proper nature 

 belonged to a state of things which is now passed or 

 passing away ; and that in the forests near Chitta- 

 gong, and by the streams of Southern Africa, the 

 elephant stands monumental, to tell the tale of a state 

 of things of which we have hardly any other living 

 record. These are matters, however, into which, 

 though fancy tempts us on, philosophy is unable to 

 follow ; and therefore we must let them remain in 

 the class of what must be admired but cannot be 

 understood. 



Still, even within the limits which our examination 

 can reach, and where fact and fancy go hand in 

 hand, the proboscis or trunk of the elephant is a most 

 extraordinary piece of animal mechanism. Hands, 

 clutching paws, feet for holding on, prehensile tails, 

 and all other working structures of animals with which 

 we are acquainted, follow one general law. The 

 basis of these consists of bones, and those bones give 

 origin and insertion to the different muscles by which 

 the action of the parts is produced. But the trunk of 

 the elephant sets this which we would be apt to 



